PollingThePollsters.com

2008 Presidential Polls & Betting Markets

Presidential race neck-and-neck, or …..?

The Pollsters & ChimbaChumba’s PollOfPollAverages                            

                                           Obama McCain 

                             Pollster   45.1   -   42.8      (+ 2.3%)  (no change)

                              CNN        47.0   -   41.0       (+ 6.0%)  (no change)

                              RCP         45.2   -   42.0       (+ 3.2%)  (no change)

                              538         49.3   -   48.1        (+ 1.2%)  (y’day +1.3)

• Obama poll lead in his closest ”marginals” (Iowa, Mich, New Hamp and Penns) is a little stronger than McCain’s lead in 2 of his “marginals” (Virginia and Nevada). 
• McCain looks like he is about to take a very narrow lead in Ohio once Pollster.com catches up with RCP and 538.
• So at the moment that leaves Colorado as the election tie-breaker (currently a polling deadheat).
• For those interested in punting, I think based on polling info alone Obama still deserves to be favourite (but not by much).
• The big question is whether the recent polling trend raises serious doubts regarding Obama’s prospects. Is it just a “mid-August Olympic lull”, where voters are not paying attention to politics, and a few points drift are relatively meaningless blips? Or is it actually quite telling?   
• NY Times had this to say today - “As Senator Barack Obama prepares to accept the Democratic presidential nomination next week, party leaders in battleground states say the fight ahead against Senator John McCain looks tougher than they imagined, with Mr. Obama vulnerable on multiple fronts despite weeks of cross-country and overseas campaigning.These Democrats — 15 governors, members of Congress and state party leaders — say Mr. Obama has yet to convert his popularity among many Americans into solutions to crucial electoral challenges: showing ownership of an issue, like economic stewardship or national security; winning over supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton; and minimizing his race and experience level as concerns for voters.
• On the other hand, are they just 15 panic merchants, with Obama/Plouffe simply sticking to a well-oiled plan? Plouffe is quoted in the same article as saying - “Democrats should take a deep breath and realize that there are a group of voters who won’t make up their mind about a candidate until deep in the fall,” said David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager. “And there are 18 states that are battlegrounds for a reason, and they’ll be decided by 2 to 4 points. I don’t care about national polls.”
• Rasmussen has this to say today, supporting my gut instinct that the race is now neck-and-neck. “When Obama first clinched the nomination, he opened a lead over McCain that was consistently in the five percentage point range. Then, following the Fourth of July, McCain began to gain a little traction leading to the close race we have today. It appears that the energy issue—offshore oil drilling in particular—has helped the Republican hopeful”. State polls tend to lag a bit behind the national trend because individual states are not polled on a daily basis. But, data released this week from North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri confirmed the national trend and showed just how close this race is on the eve of the two nominating conventions.
• Open your wallet on McCain at $3.15 - the betting market is still asleep to the fact that the winds have shifted, and McCain should not be rated a 31.7% dog! (I am not saying McCain is favourite, just that he ain’t that big an underdog - I think McCain is at worst a 40% chance, and could actually be 50% given the way Obama’s poll numbers have trended in key battleground States).

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