Over the three days, R2K found the following race break-downs:
Thursday, September 11: Obama 47, McCain 45
Friday, September 12: Obama 47, McCain 46
Saturday, September 13: Obama 47, McCain 47
Clearly, the Republican has been moving up ever-so-slightly been at the end of this week. This mirrors most of the other tracking polls showing a tied race, and a Newsweek poll released today showing the contest deadlocked at 46-46.
If we examine and compare the data from the three polls, we can easily pick up on some key trends which probably explain the slight positive movement for McCain.
Among men, today's poll finds McCain leading 50-42, and this number has moved by a point in any direction in three days. With women, there has been a bit more movement, as the split was 51-42 for Obama Thursday, 51-43 Friday, and 52-44 Saturday. Obama has thus gained one point, while McCain has gotten two.
There has been no movement among Democratic voters, and just about zero movement among Republicans. Needless to say while McCain is winning his side 91-6 Saturday, Obama is mired at 83-13 with Democrats. This is probably a combination of a handful of HRC supporters, but more likely a lot of self-identified, but still conservative Democrats who are voting for McCain.The number among independents is probably the most important thing we should take away from this poll. McCain led among this group 44-42 on Thurday. His edge expanded to 45-42 on Friday, and to 49-42 today. This seems to suggest that while Obama is remaining stagnant with this key bloc, McCain is slowly but surely scooping up formally undecided indies, whose ranks went from 5 percent, to 4 percent, to 2 percent between Thursday and Saturday.
This is not good for Obama. McCain is grabbing the cross-section of voters who will most likely determine the election. There could be many reasons for this, but the take-away is that they are flocking to McCain now.
White voters are also ticking to McCain, but this is no shock: McCain's number went from 56-to-57-to-58, while Obama has remained at 35. This mirrors a lot of the other data. The black vote is unmoved, but nonetheless dominated by Obama, though it is interesting that 3 percent has remained undecided. This suggests that the high undecided percentage in Mississippi might not be a total fluke, and these voters may be very socially conservative blacks who are not yet fully ready to support Obama. Still, it is not a likely worry for the Democrat.
Today's Latino number stands out for sure. Obama has been dominating in this demographic: 67-28/67-27/65-32. Saturday's number is troubling for the Blue Team, but because it is a sudden bump which seems to have come out of nowhere, Democrats should not yet despair that it is a trendline. Still, Obama will have to get around 70 percent of the Hispanic vote nationally to win, especially to grab states like New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada.
Broken down by age group, again there seems to be one key statistic here among voters 30-to-44. This group favored McCain 48-44 on Thursday, 49-44 Friday, and 50-43 Saturday.
Looking the polls by region, Obama continues to do well in the northeastern states. McCain's southern showing went up a point a day as he solidifies himself in his base region. The huge concern here is in the pivotal midwest. It has gone from 50-43, to 49-44, to 49-46. This is another big worry for Team Obama. The trendlines are slowly moving away from him here. This is his most important region, including states like Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio. Finally, Obama led in the western states 48-44 on the first two days, but it went up to 50-44 Saturday. We won't call this a trend yet, but it is one promising sign for the Democrat.
In terms of the other data, there is one other interesting nugget. McCain and Obama's favorable numbers have remained fairly stable. What stands out differently is Sarah Palin:
Thursday: 52 percent favorable, 35 percent unfavorable
Friday: 51-37
Saturday: 49-40
By contrast, Biden's numbers have been 51-30/52-31/50-32. There is a clear, albeit so-far small trendline down for Palin. The next poll will be very telling is this more than a brief blip. Either Democratic attacks or the negative media stories have finally been having an impact on Palin's high numbers.
This would be encouraging for Democrats, as Palin has been McCain's biggest asset by far, but while Palin's numbers largely sank this week, McCain's surprisingly ticked up? Is this itself a trend -- that Palin's weakening is not in turn a weakening for McCain? Maybe. We will need more time to see if both trends hold or expand. If so, that is certainly a strange phenomenon, and it proves our argument that Obama should leave Palin alone and focus his fire on John McCain. Clearly, as McCain remains strong, this is obvious. It would be fascinating if Palin's unfavorable number rose higher than McCain's, and it right now it is 43 percent unfavorable for McCain, and 40 percent unfavorable for his running mate. The implications of such a move are again, unclear.
Still, the R2K polling data has more negatives than positives for Barack Obama. Most important is that McCain is seemingly pulling away among independent voters, and he is close to pulling even in the midwest. He is also increasing his margin among voters aged 30 to 44, which probably go hand in hand with these other two findings. As Obama and his inner circle craft his message and attacks going forward, it is likely that they will both be geared towards fixing movement among these groups.
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