Diego/Hotline Trendlines

I just found that the Diego/Hotline daily tracking poll also releases its findings for free, so from now on I will include their findings while I am looking at R2K for the purposes of comparing/contrasting.

While the Diego/Hotline poll does not release detailed trendlines broken down by ethnicity, region, and age, it nonetheless gives us some data worth examination. Their poll seems more interested in asking questions along the line of issues. Let's look at the favorable/unfavorable splits for the four major-party candidates:

John McCain: 59-38 (Sept 12)/57-37 (Sept 13)/55-40 (Sept 14)/54-40 (Sept 15)/51-41 (Sept 16); -11 points (from +21 to +10)

Barack Obama: 53-40/53-40/54-39/52-40/54-37; +4 pts (from +13 to +17)

Joe Biden: 44-30/45-30/45-31/45-32/45-32; -1 pt (from +14 to +13)

Sarah Palin: 51-29/52-30/49-34/48-36/47-36; -11 pts (from +22 to +11)

These trendlines well mirror R2K's findings in terms of movement. Both McCain and Palin had had significant drops over the last week, in large part from all of the negatives stories out there and from the campaign attacks being circulated. Here too, Obama has made a decent gain, and while Biden went down a point over the five-day span, I think that is probably insignificant, and we can say that his numbers have remained largely the same.

The difference in exact numbers between R2K and Diego/Hotline are probably because of the break-down of respondents. For R2K's polls, respondents are 35% Democrat/26% Republican/30% Independent. Diego/Hotline uses a split of approximately 42/35/20. Though, of course there could be other reasons. Still, the trendlines between the two are very similar.

Interestingly, and not surprisingly, respondents rated the economy, gas prices and energy, and the war in Iraq as the top three issues. When asked to identify their most important issue, 39 percent responded the economy, 9 percent responded gas and oil prices, and 8 percent said Iraq.

On issue-by-issue questioning, Obama has a very clear advantage on the economic issue, which well explains why he has been able to grab a national lead. On the question of which candidate would do a better job of handling the nation's economy, Obama led 45-42 (9/12), 47-43 (9/13), 50-41 (9/14), 47-40 (9/15), and 47-36 (9/16). As the economic issue has come to the forefront of the campaign, it has obviously benefited the Democrat, perhaps partially because of his focus on the issue, but also because of President Bush's popularity. This is an issue Obama and his campaign will likely continue to push.

Similarly on energy policy, Obama has opened up a big lead. The splits on this issue question over the same time period have been as follows: 45-43/45-44/47-44/46-42/50-38. As these economic problems become large in Americans' minds, Obama has been able to open a sizable lead here too. Because the economy and energy policy/fueld costs are the top issues for around half the country, McCain will need to chip away at this margins in order for him to get back on strong national footing.