Zogby, 2pt Obama lead

[dbair1967]

Released: October 08, 2008
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll:
Obama 47%, McCain 45%

The telephone tracking poll shows neither candidate with a clear advantage in the national horserace

UTICA, New York - The race for President of the United States remains far too close to call between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain as both candidates head toward the finish line, a recent Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking telephone polls shows.


Data from this poll is available here


The survey, including a three-day sample of 1,220 likely voters collected over the previous three days - approximately 400 per day from Oct. 5-7, 2008 - shows that Obama holds a slight advantage amounting to 1.9 percentage points over McCain. This represents a bit of a recovery by McCain, who had been sliding in some polls before his running mate, Sarah Palin, put in a strong performance in her one and only debate performance last Thursday.

Three Day Tracking Poll
10-7
10-6

Obama
47.1%
47.7%

McCain
45.2%
45.3%

Others/Not sure
7.7%
7.0%


The Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll, was conducted before Tuesday's Obama-McCain debate. It was performed by live telephone operators in Zogby's in-house call center in Upstate New York, included a total of 1,220 likely voters nationwide, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points.

Candidates Doing Well Among Their Own Party Members

The two candidates are doing well at attracting support from their own partisans - Obama is winning 84% of the Democratic Party support and McCain is winning 85% of the Republican Party support - but Obama has the edge among independent voters. He leads McCain among independents, 48 to 39%.

Obama wins support from a slightly higher percentage of conservative voters than McCain is winning from liberal voters, but the advantage is small.

Daily Tracking Continues

This daily tracking telephone poll will continue each day until the Nov. 4 election, keeping in touch with the daily twists and turns in the race for the White House. The running poll of about 1,200 likely voters consists of three days of polling - about 400 from each of the last three days. With each new day of polling that is folded into the poll, the oldest third of the survey is replaced with the fresh data, so the poll "tracks" movements and events in the campaigns. Keep up to date every day by visiting www.zogby.com.

For a complete methodological statement on this survey, please visit:

http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.dbm?ID=1341

(10/8/2008)



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BACK TO ZOGBY IN THE MEDIA

[Bach]

Libs flocking to post other polls in 3...2...1...

[zrinkill]

Yay!!!!

The guy I "support" is barely losing!!!!


.......

[masomenos]

Obama has an 11 point lead in Gallup polling

http://www.gallup.com/poll/107674/Ga...tion-2008.aspx

The polls are all over the place, ranging from a 1 point Obama lead to the 11 point lead that Gallup has. The closest projection is probably the average, which is around a 5 or 6 point Obama lead nationally.

Really the important polls at this point at the polls of battleground states.

[Danny White]

Originally Posted by masomenos85

Really the important polls at this point at the polls of battleground states.

Definitely agree. I'd also add that polls of "likely voters" are better than polls that don't make that discernment.

[masomenos]

Originally Posted by Danny White

Definitely agree. I'd also add that polls of "likely voters" are better than polls that don't make that discernment.

Yeah, that is also true.

[ABQCOWBOY]

Originally Posted by zrinkill

Yay!!!!

The guy I "support" is barely losing!!!!


.......

[Heisenberg]

The national polls, besides Gallup, ticked towards McCain today. Not sure what will happen tomorrow when the first post debate day is added in. The state polls are still showing Obama doing well, but if things DID start ticking towards McCain, it would be a few days before state polls started showing it. We'll see.

[adamc91115]

I believe the race is starting to tighten again, evidenced by the erratic polling.

Just a few days ago the average Obama lead was around 6.5%, it has dropped to around 5.1%.

We'll know by the end of the week if it really is just erratic polling or if its related to a tightening race.

[ABQCOWBOY]

What does the electorial say? That is the only one that counts.

[masomenos]

Originally Posted by adamc91115

I believe the race is starting to tighten again, evidenced by the erratic polling.

Just a few days ago the average Obama lead was around 6.5%, it has dropped to around 5.1%.

We'll know by the end of the week if it really is just erratic polling or if its related to a tightening race.

There was an interesting article on FiveThiryEight.com about this. I'll see if I can find it...

This post is going to seem slightly less relevant now that Gallup has come in showing an 11-point lead for Obama. But the other five daily tracking polls (yes, there are now that many trackers) all showed movement toward John McCain.

Between the Gallup result and Obama's very strong state polling, I am inclined to think that this particular ebb in the tracking polls is mostly statistical noise. That notwithstanding, it's worth considering Chris Bowers' point at Open Left. What, realistically, is Obama's ceiling in this election?

[View Full Quote]The better a candidate's standing in the polls, the harder it ought to be pick up additional support. In part, this is simply because the more voters that you have in your column, the fewer there are available to convert. But this is still a highly partisan country, we tend to have close elections, and things certainly aren't going to be any easier for a black candidate.

If Obama is ahead by something like 7-8 points ahead nationally, that means that he has persuaded just about all of the persuadables, and he's left looking to covert people like those in Ben Smith's anecdote.

An Obama supporter, who canvassed for the candidate in the working-class, white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, sends over an account that, in various forms, I've heard a lot in recent weeks.

"What's crazy is this," he writes. "I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are f***ing undecided. They would call him a n----r and mention how they don't know what to do because of the economy."

If those sorts of people are the undecideds -- and when Obama is winning Pennsylvania by 12 points or something, that's probably what we're looking at -- then Obama really is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Further gains are going to be difficult to come by, which means that his polls are more likely to go down than to continue going up. (Indeed, our model assumes that the race will tighten some).

[adamc91115]

Originally Posted by ABQCOWBOY

What does the electorial say? That is the only one that counts.

If the overall race is tightening, the electoral college will take a few days to level off as well. The reason is that individual states only have polling every few days so it will take a bit to get an updated average.

[Beast_from_East]

Obama is only up 2 pts?

Yea, sure.

If you guys actually beleive that I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you.

[Heisenberg]

If I had to guess, I would think the election would closer than the last few days of polling have shown. I mean, there were polls showing Obama leading by 12. That's not going to happen.

Electoral vote wise? I have no idea.

[adamc91115]

Originally Posted by Beast_from_East

Obama is only up 2 pts?

Yea, sure.

If you guys actually beleive that I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you.

Man have I got some ocean front property in Arizona for you if you believe Obama already locked up this election.