Zogby: McCain Leads; Rasmussen: It's All Tied
Nick Gillespie | September 7, 2008, 11:03am
Take all of this for what you will, what's it worth, etc. But here are two polls about that there presidential election in November that show Republican John McCain doing well about Democrat Barack Obama:
The McCain/Palin ticket wins 49.7% support, compared to 45.9% backing for the Obama/Biden ticket, this latest online survey shows. Another 4.4% either favored someone else or were unsure.
The Ticket Horserace | 9-5/6 | 8-29/30 |
McCain-Palin | 49.7% | 47.1% |
Obama-Biden | 45.9% | 44.6% |
Others/Not sure | 4.4% | 8.3% |
In the two-way contest in which just McCain and Obama were mentioned in the question, the result was slightly different, with McCain leading, 48.8% to 45.7%.
One-on-One Horserace | 9-5/6 |
McCain | 48.8% |
Obama | 45.7% |
Others/Not sure | 5.5% |
In a Zogby Interactive survey conducted last weekend, just after the McCain announcement that Palin would join his ticket, McCain Palin won 47.1% support, while Obama/Biden won 44.6% support.
The interactive survey of 2,312 likely voters nationwide was conducted Sept. 5-6, 2008, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.1 percentage points.
More here.
In the first national [Rasumussen tracking] polling results based entirely on interviews conducted after Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, Barack Obama gets 46% of the vote and so does John McCain. When "leaners" are included, it's all even at 48%....
This past Tuesday, Obama's bounce peaked with the Democrat enjoying a six-percentage point advantage. Before the two conventions were held, Obama had consistently held a one or two point lead over McCain for most of August (see recent daily results).
Tracking Poll results are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, tomorrow (Monday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after McCain's speech. By Tuesday or Wednesday, the net impact of both political conventions should be fairly clear....
Forty-two percent (42%) of voters say that economic issues are most important this year and Obama holds a 34-point advantage among these voters.
Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters say the national security issues are most important. Among these voters its McCain by 39.
More here.
Forget about Tuesday or Wednesday—I suspect we'll have a clearer sense of where things are in a week's time, after the memory of the conventions has faded (thank god) and we've got a solid week of slinging back and forth from the campaigns.
It does seem that the presidential debates (and to a lesser degree, the vice presidential version) might have a really serious impact on the presidential vote this time around. And it should be an interesting matchup, with two very different personalities and oratorical styles on display.
I'm very interested to see how Bob Barr fares over the next couple of week, too. He was pulling 5 percent in a Zogby poll a week or so back, and polled as high as 8 percent in an Ohio survey, but seems to have faded since then.
joe | September 7, 2008, 2:25pm | #
J, NM,
According to that same source - the Brookings/Tax Policy Center study - the top 1% would fare as follows under the two plans:
McCain: -$31,943
Obama: +$114,238
That is for those making $619,561 per annum.
If the average person in the top 20% gets a $2856 tax cut from McCain, but the top 5% of that quintile (ie, the top 1%) gets a $31,943 tax cut, that means that people in the 80-99% range average a tax cut of $2562.
If the average person in the top 20% get a $6770 tax increase under the Obama plan, but the top 1% gets a $114,238 increase, that's a $5684 increase for people in the 80-99% range.
However, that top quintile begins at $117,535 per year, and Obama's plan includes no tax increases on people earning below about $250,000, so if we assume that that figure is right about at the 90% level, that means that half the people in the top quintile get no tax increase, the people above 99% get a $114k tax increase, so the people between 90% and 99% get a $2351 tax hike.
So the Obama plan is, roughly:
Bottom 20%: -$617
Second 20%: -$950
Middle 20%: -$1035
Fourth 20%: -$757
Next 10%: About even
Next 9%: +$2351
Top 1%: +$114,238 (This is an average for the top 1%, which includes a population with the lowest income a little above $600k, and the highest over $1 billion.)
All figures subject to my assumptions, Brookings' assumptions, and joez math skeelz.
joe | September 7, 2008, 9:50pm | #
You keep watching his lead get smaller, smaller.. No, I don't. This was a completely manufactured media story. Before the conventions, Obama had a remarkably, historically unprecedented, steady lead of 2-4 points. There were not flip-flops in the lead, and it never got larger than that. You just looked at every outlier poll in one direction, and one direction only, and freaked out about it. I told you after you freaked out about the August 20th Zogby poll - which you threw a holy queen of a tantrum over - that is was an outlier, and that it would quickly be followed by a bunch of polls in the familiar small-Obama-lead range, and what happened? There were a bunch of polls released in the next week showing exactly that small Obama lead. You completely ignored them.
Then, Obama got a big convention bounce, went up over 50%, grew his lead to 6-8 points, and you completely ignored that. As did I, because it's just a convention bounce. And then McCain gets a convention bounce, too, like every candidate from either party has done since the beginning of polling, and you're back to your mooing "Dooomed! Dooooomed!"
Well, maybe not, but who wants a stupid and clumsy candidate You really can't see anything but the man's color and name, can you? A stupid, clumsy candidate? You are delusional, or you are putting on an act.
Get this through your head: no Democratic candidate in your lifetime has performed this well in a campaign. No Democratic candidate since LBJ was an incumbent has held an unbroken lead from April through the Republican convention. None. Never happened. Not Carter, running against Nixon's VP two years after Watergate. Not Bill Clinton, the most talented (southern, White, male) politician of our time, running against an incumbent Republican in the middle of a recession. Nobody.
If Barack Obama was as weak a candidate as your personal reflexes tell you, he would not have set the record for the longest unbroken period leading the polls in modern history. We don't have to guess at this anymore; we have a track record now, actual evidence from the world outside your head.
Marie | September 7, 2008, 11:08pm | #
New Story Breaking - Track Palin School Bus Vandalism in 2005?
I know, another story about Palin's family but this one may actually lead into current problems with Palin's abuse of power investigation. For those not aware, its an old story from 2005 concerning school bus vandalism in Wasilla, Alaska with a new twist previously unreported.
It was reported today in Anchorage on progressive talk 1080 KUDO - and quoted from a non-disclosed judicial source, that Track Palin was the unidentified minor who was involved with the vandalism at the time. The minor was reported to be 16 years old. Here is the news article I found relating to this back in 2005. The judicial source's reason for disclosing the data was that it would be released 'sooner or later'.
Even more interesting is the fact that the Alaska State Troopers did the investigation and report on the incident. To add fuel to the fire, Trooper Wooten (the trooper Palin has tried to get removed from the Alaska State Troopers) was assigned to that post at that time and may have worked on the case. I'm trying to secure a copy of the police report.
Published on Monday, December 5, 2005 7:47 PM AKST
Four teens arrested Monday for criminal mischief, trespass
December 6, 2005
JOEL DAVIDSONFrontiersman reporter
MAT-SU - Alaska State Troopers arrested four teenage boys at their Mat-Su homes Monday after they were charged in last week's vandalism of 44 Mat-Su school buses - an incident that forced the Mat-Su Borough School District to close schools for a day on Nov. 29.
Trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson said the boys were in the custody of their parents over the weekend while troopers continued their investigation. The arrests Monday were pre-arranged so parents could be present when the boys were taken away to Mat-Su Youth Facility in Palmer.
Deryck Harris, 18, and the other three boys - ages 16, 17 and 17 - were each charged with third-degree criminal mischief, first-degree criminal trespass and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, troopers said. The 16-year-old was also charged with fourth-degree theft and furnishing alcohol to a minor, for allegedly stealing a bottle of vodka from the liquor store at Tesoro 2-Go in Wasilla.
“They stopped at a liquor store where he went in and stole a bottle of vodka and provided it to the others in the group,” Wilkinson said. “Three of the four boys consumed alcohol.”
Troopers did not release names of the juvenile suspects, but David Coon's mother confirmed her son was one of two Burchell High School students involved in the incident. The other two boys are Wasilla High School students.
Mat-Su Youth Facility Superintendent Bruce Collins said youths in this situation must see a judge within 48 hours of their detention at the facility.
“The clock is ticking,” he said. “These guys will probably go to court today or tomorrow.”
Depending on the situation, Collins said the youths could face a number of different scenarios when they go before a judge.
“It can go a whole bunch of directions,” he said. “If they can't go back home, we don't have a whole lot of foster homes in the Valley. In that case they might stay with us. If they order
