Latest AP poll shows an even race

[ducks]

http://www.yahoo.com/s/974841

[ducks]

WASHINGTON – The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.

Three weeks ago, an AP-GfK survey found that Obama had surged to a seven-point lead over McCain, lifted by voters who thought the Democrat was better suited to lead the nation through its sudden economic crisis.

The contest is still volatile, and the split among voters is apparent less than two weeks before Election Day.

"I trust McCain more, and I do feel that he has more experience in government than Obama. I don't think Obama has been around long enough," said Angela Decker, 44, of La Porte, Ind.

But Karen Judd, 58, of Middleton, Wis., said, "Obama certainly has sufficient qualifications." She said any positive feelings about McCain evaporated with "the outright lying" in TV ads and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin, who "doesn't have the correct skills."

The new AP-GfK head-to-head result is a departure from some, but not all, recent national polls.

Obama and McCain were essentially tied among likely voters in the latest George Washington University Battleground Poll, conducted by Republican strategist Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. In other surveys focusing on likely voters, a Washington Post-ABC News poll and a Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey have Obama up by 11 points, and a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center has him leading by 14.

Polls are snapshots of highly fluid campaigns. In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6. There are many reasons why polls differ, including methods of estimating likely voters and the wording of questions.

Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people.

"If they all agree, somebody would be doing something terribly wrong," he said of polls. But he also said that surveys generally fall within a few points of each other, adding, "When you get much beyond that, there's something to explain."

The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a nationally representative random sample totaling 1,101 adults, including 800 deemed likely to vote. For the entire sample, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among all registered voters, including the likely voters.

A significant number of the interviews were conducted by dialing a randomly selected sample of cell phone numbers, and thus this poll had a chance to reach voters who were excluded from some other polls.

It was taken over five days from Thursday through Monday, starting the night after the candidates' final debate and ending the day after former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with the Republican Party to endorse Obama.

McCain's strong showing is partly attributable to his strong debate performance; Thursday was his best night of the survey. Obama's best night was Sunday, hours after the Powell announcement, and the full impact of that endorsement may not have been captured in any surveys yet. Future polling could show whether either of those was merely a support "bounce" or something more lasting.

During their final debate, a feisty McCain repeatedly forced Obama to defend his record, comments and associations. He also used the story of a voter whom the Democrat had met in Ohio, "Joe the plumber," to argue that Obama's tax plan would be bad for working class voters.

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," Obama told the man with the last name of Wurzelbacher, who had asked Obama whether his plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year would impede his ability to buy the plumbing company where he works.

On Wednesday, McCain's campaign unveiled a new TV ad that features that Obama quote, and shows different people saying: "I'm Joe the plumber." A man asks: "Obama wants my sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending?"

Since McCain has seized on that line of argument, he has picked up support among white married people and non-college educated whites, the poll shows, while widening his advantage among white men. Black voters still overwhelmingly support Obama.

The Republican also has improved his rating for handling the economy and the financial crisis. Nearly half of likely voters think their taxes will rise under an Obama administration compared with a third who say McCain would raise their taxes.

Since the last AP-GfK survey in late September, McCain also has:

_Posted big gains among likely voters earning under $50,000 a year; he now trails Obama by just 4 percentage points compared with 26 earlier.

_Surged among rural voters; he has an 18-point advantage, up from 4.

_Doubled his advantage among whites who haven't finished college and now leads by 20 points. McCain and Obama are running about even among white college graduates, no change from earlier.

_Made modest gains among whites of both genders, now leading by 22 points among white men and by 7 among white women.

_Improved slightly among whites who are married, now with a 24-point lead.

_Narrowed a gap among unmarried whites, though he still trails by 8 points.

McCain has cut into Obama's advantage on the questions of whom voters trust to handle the economy and the financial crisis. On both, the Democrat now leads by just 6 points, compared with 15 in the previous survey.

Obama still has a larger advantage on other economic measures, with 44 percent saying they think the economy will have improved a year from now if he is elected compared with 34 percent for McCain.

Intensity has increased among McCain's supporters.

A month ago, Obama had more strong supporters than McCain did. Now, the number of excited supporters is about even.

Eight of 10 Democrats are supporting Obama, while nine in 10 Republicans are backing McCain. Independents are about evenly split.

Some 24 percent of likely voters were deemed still persuadable, meaning they were either undecided or said they might switch candidates. Those up-for-grabs voters came about equally from the three categories: undecideds, McCain supporters and Obama backers.

Said John Ormesher, 67, of Dandridge, Tenn.: "I've got respect for them but that's the extent of it. I don't have a whole lot of affinity toward either one of them. They're both part of the same political mess."

___

AP Director of Surveys Trevor Tompson, AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP writer Alan Fram contributed to this report

[clambake]

mccain in a landslide has already been confirmed.

[Findog]

Why post this junk poll? The internals are nuts. It has 44% evangelical christians when they made up 23% of the electorate in 2004. It has McCain winning 18-24 year olds. The South makes up about 35% of the poll while the Northeast and West are about 15-20% each. Yeah, McCain is only losing by one if you barely poll California and New York

[Galileo]

http://www.yahoo.com/s/974841

This is BS. Obama has it rapped up. Time to vote for Bob Barr.

Libertarian Barr says McCain can't win presidency





Associated Press - October 22, 2008 7:03 PM ET

ATLANTA (AP) - Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr says John McCain can't win the election and he's appealing for the support of Republican-leaning conservatives.

The former GOP congressman from Georgia says in an e-mail message that the last two weeks of McCain's campaign will be a 'farewell tour' due to what he calls McCain's "mixed and angry" message.

Barr says a vote for him rather than for McCain would send a message of protest over the big spending policies of President Bush and John McCain, like support for the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=9223288&nav=HMO6HMaY

[boutons_]

http://rawstory.com/images/other/rawsmaller2.gif (http://rawstory.com/)

Polls show Obama pulling away from McCain
10/22/2008 @ 9:45 am

Filed by Agence France-Presse

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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The popularity gap between Barack Obama and John McCain has doubled from seven percent earlier this month to 14 percent, according to the Pew Research Center's latest voters poll published Tuesday.

Conducted October 16-19 among 2,599 people and with a 2.5 point margin of error, the Pew poll found Democrat Obama's support had grown to 52 percent of voters against 38 percent for his Republican White House rival.

A Pew poll at the beginning of October showed a seven-point gap between the two.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of 1,159 people showed Illinois Senator Obama ahead of Arizona Senator McCain by 10 points, 52-42 percent, up from six points two weeks ago. The survey was taken October 17-20 and had a 2.9-point margin of error.

Obama's surging popularity, according to Pew, was mostly due to voters' dwindling confidence in McCain, as witnessed after each of the candidates' three TV debates.

The Pew poll found voters trusted Obama over McCain on all issues including Iraq and the war on terror.

On who is best suited to fix the economic crisis, Obama was picked by an overwhelming 53 percent of respondents, against 32 percent for MCain.

Forty-one percent of voters thought McCain showed bad judgement in the choices he made, compared to only 29 percent for Obama.

The age factor was also a concern for voters, with 34 percent of respondents saying McCain was too old to be president -- at 72, he would become the oldest president elected to a first term in office.

As far as McCain's choice of running mate, Pew found voters were more divided: 49 percent of voters disapproved of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, while 44 percent approved her.

Among women under 50 years of age, however, Palin's disapproval reached 60 percent.

Regarding the campaigns both sides have been waging, 56 percent thought McCain's was too negative, against only 26 percent for Obama.

There was one silver lining in the Pew poll for Arizona Senator McCain: 23 percent of voters said they were still undecided.

According to the RealClearPolitics website that publishes the average of all opinion surveys on the candidates, including Pew's, Obama on Tuesday was ahead of McCain by seven points, 50.1 to 43.2 percent.

[Anti.Hero]

This is BS. Obama has it rapped up. Time to vote for Bob Barr.

Libertarian Barr says McCain can't win presidency





Associated Press - October 22, 2008 7:03 PM ET

ATLANTA (AP) - Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr says John McCain can't win the election and he's appealing for the support of Republican-leaning conservatives.

The former GOP congressman from Georgia says in an e-mail message that the last two weeks of McCain's campaign will be a 'farewell tour' due to what he calls McCain's "mixed and angry" message.

Barr says a vote for him rather than for McCain would send a message of protest over the big spending policies of President Bush and John McCain, like support for the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=9223288&nav=HMO6HMaY

Done. :toast

Although, in a swing state I would have voted McCain.

[dg7md]

Nothing wrong with exposure to the libertarian party...

[ducks]

http://rawstory.com/ is won by liberals

[ChumpDumper]

So is the Wall Street Journal....

[boutons_]

On this AP poll outlying from all other polls:

"45% of this poll's respondents are evangelicals or born-again Christians"

"In 2004, evangelicals/born-again Christians made up 23% of voters. But that same group makes up 44% of likely voters in AP's poll released today. That's almost double the number - it's totally implausible."

"This means AP disproportionately skewed its polling towards the GOP base. So it's no surprise that the AP poll shows McCain doing better than in other polls."

http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/new-flawed-ap-poll-claims-mccain-and.html

[TheMadHatter]

Nope sorry ducks. Stick to the national trackers and not obscure polls like this with fucked up internals. Obama is WAY up.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/2964743915_8c84158441_o.png

[sook]

Nope sorry ducks. Stick to the national trackers and not obscure polls like this with fucked up internals. Obama is WAY up.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3213/2964743915_8c84158441_o.png

i think the neocons are becoming delusional, they are depending on useless polls! :lmao

[Nbadan]

Told you the AP was NeoCon...

[dg7md]

If Fox reports a big Obama lead... you know it's true.

[AntiChrist]

My friends at ACORN have assured me that the polls will give me an exaggerated lead on "that one".

I'll send mome of my people over to the AP immediately.

THanks for the heads up.

[101A]

Told you the AP was NeoCon...

As usual, flawed logic.

McCain gaining in the polls has been the single most important event in encouraging Obama supporters to open their wallets. This poll helps Obama, not McCain.