TPM Track Composite: Obama Holding Big Lead
Here's our daily composite of the five major national tracking polls. Barack Obama's big lead over John McCain is the same as it was yesterday:
• Gallup*: Obama 53%, McCain 43%, with a ±2% margin of error, compared to a 53%-43% Obama lead yesterday.
• Rasmussen: Obama 50%, McCain 45%, with a ±2% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.
• Hotline/Diageo: Obama 48%, McCain 42%, with a ±3.4% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.
• Research 2000: Obama 52%, McCain 41%, with a ±3% margin of error, compared to a 52%-40% Obama lead from yesterday.
• Zogby: Obama 49%, McCain 43%, with a ±2.9% margin of error, compared to a 48%-44% Obama lead yesterday.
Adding these polls together and weighting them by the square roots of their sample sizes, Obama is ahead 50.6%-43.1%, a lead of 7.5 points, identical to the 50.6%-43.1% Obama lead from yesterday.
*ed. note: Gallup has begun offering two different sub-samples of likely voters, one using a traditional likely-voter model and the other using a modified likely-voter model for an expected higher turnout. For all our composites and Poll Tracker entries, we will be using that second model under the expectation that newly-registered voters and other factors will contribute to a higher turnout this cycle.
Kewl!
and props, Eric - you're quite the hustler, too, aren't you? All those "McCain Vaults..." ledes.
;)
October 14, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Halperin has up that the McCain camp affirmed their attack from last week and said in a press release yet again that Obama pals around with a terrorist.
For the record, no John, when this is over we won't forgive you.
http://pufferfish.typepad.com/
October 14, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word to your mother!
October 14, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do the Righties hate truth and logic so much? What is that they have against it? A freaking US Senator colleague really pals around with terrorists?
What are they gonna say next, ACORN is stealing the election?
October 14, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Acorn? Not gonna happen. Nobody is stupid enough to buy that talking point.
October 14, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well... Some are. IE Hannity, Rush, Beck and O'Reilly listeners, people with tinfoil securely fastened on their domes, and other fundies who don't quite realize that you can register dead people, or even the same person 73 times but no matter what, if they have ID's, they can only vote once.
Never underestimate the lack of knowledge of the Fundies.
October 14, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Never underestimate the lack of knowledge of the Fundies."
What's weird is that their lack of knowledge is their choice. That's when you go from being ignorant to just being an idiot.
October 14, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a great article on politico
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14556.html
Obama leads in 3 of 4 key Bush counties...
How smart the Obama campaign is!!!
They sure know how to play the game...
October 14, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that it's quite ironic that Obama has taken the fight to 'red' battlegrounds. There are very few Democratic strongholds that are in jeopardy of swinging to McCain. Whereas, a largely 'red' state like Virginia (or Colorado, Missouri, et al) is in danger of swinging to Obama.
McCain is playing defense. And he's losing.
http://thepajamapundit.com/
October 14, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it makes more sense to average the two Gallup results:
It seems a bit excessive to assume that everyone who says they will vote will vote.
At the same time, it would be excessive to assume that people will not vote just because they never have.
I would suggest something in the middle, although it's not clear there's a principled way to do that.
October 14, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vedddy intareshting... Basing Likely Voter (LV) status solely on stated intention gives BigO +10. Adding in voter history to LV determination drops his lead to +6.
Observation: Consider people who SAY they're gonna vote despite a history that says they might not. Obama gets the lion's share of these.
Inference: Not many people say they're gonna vote for McSame unless they have a history of having voted reliably.
This might be a stretch, but does that mean BigO has a big lead in voter enthusiasm? Could that mean Obama voters are more likely to show up and McSame voters more likely to stay home? Hmmm...
October 14, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Obama is stagnant in the polls. He needs to do something! Quick before McCain 5.0 rolls out.
October 14, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point! I'd say if Obama isn't 16 points ahead in the average of trackers by next week, why, that would be excellent news for the McCain campaign!
October 14, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe if McCain says ACORN really fast 10 times he'll start gaining again. McCain was for ACORN before he was against it.
October 14, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
All people will hear is corn-ay, corn-ay, corn-ay...
October 14, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the talking heads of the teevee say that 21 days 'is a lifetime' with regards to politics. It doesn't seem very long to me; can things still go the other way? I don't see it happening. As long as all the regional campaign offices keep plugging away . . .
October 14, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The conventional wisdom is 21 days is a lifetime in politics. That means many of the newspeople that get paid are hoping the race is close so a lot of people watch them so they get more famous and rich. So they keep saying it. You do not hear many saying that the chances of the leading candidate at this point losing are nil. And okay - if they said that maybe many people on both side wouldn't go vote.
October 14, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think 45 is Scott Rasmussen's lucky number.
October 14, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Still awaiting the McCain economic plan. Any word? Did the dog eat McCain's homework?
October 14, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ambers found it, though now that JSM is talking about "risky Obama", he's pretty much guaranteed that it'll be below the fold.
Maybe McCain thinks that if the news simply says "McCain proposes plan," he'll be let off the hook and no one will care about the details.
October 14, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've sat through two debates awaiting details of a plan on anything, but got nothing but generalities.
The only thing he has proposed, to my knowledge, on the economic rescue plan is to allow seniors that are over 70 1/2 to keep their funds in their IRS's so they don't lose money in a forced sale of assets. That was actually a good recommendation. He should have stuck with that and built upon it.
Financial plan = too hard
Sleaze = too easy
October 14, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
It involves tax cuts for the wealthy, through capitol gains tax cuts. Particularily, beneficial to speculators who are raising the price of fuel and food by trading on oil, wheat, corn, and other staples.
The supposed bonus' of a capital gains tax cut has been totally debunked.
http://www.cbpp.org/7-10-07tax.htm
Reward the assholes who hurt the middle class! Great job McCain.
October 14, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Course the erratic (whoops!) GWU/Battleground poll now has Obama +13, so that would up the average even more today.
Wingnuttia sure loved that one when it was close. Now I'm sure they're all over the new IBD tracker (it seems like new trackers keep getting introduced which try to show a closer race, but then they "regress" to the norm ...)
October 14, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's that? Can you smelllll what B-ROCK IS COOKIN'?
October 14, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes the new economic plan has been released...Just mainly cut taxes on the capital gain...
Nothing for the middle class...
October 14, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eric,
In your "composite of the five major national tracking polls," where is today's GWU / Battleground poll that shows Obama leading by 13 points (53-40)? Why Zogby, the least reliable of the 5?
To reiterate what I said earlier, the GWU Battleground Poll is a bi-partisan survey, conducted by Republican strategist Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group and Democrat Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners. Since its inception in June 1991, the Battleground has been right 75% 0f the time, i.e. 1992, 1996, and 2004 presidential races, more than any other polls of similar nature in the country, including MSM.
Pollster.com and fivethirtyeight include their polls. Why not you?
October 14, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, Zogby continues it's roll as the poll of choice by the Righties.
October 14, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
My wife and I already voted here in Colorado. Our county (Jefferson) offers permanent mail-in ballot status for all elections and we signed up last May. We can also go online after dropping off our ballots and track them to be sure they were received.
October 14, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone see CNN and MSNBC this morning? Both had Obama stuck at 264 electoral votes - just short of 270 to win. MSNBC had a story where Obama's lead is now 11 points in Colorado and 16 in Michigan - and both are now "lean Obama." My guess is they won't call it outright wins because it puts Obama over 270 and you want watch their election coverage any more.
October 14, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course they won't do that, because if they do than the race is over and they can't cover anything anymore. THEY NEED A HORSERACE.
October 14, 2008 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Poll Finds Wide Obama Lead Despite McCain Attacks
Talk about an ironic headline (from the NY Times web story on the latest 53-39 Times/CBS poll numbers).
How about BECAUSE of McCain attacks?!
October 14, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink