Showing posts with label Polls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Polls. Show all posts

Sunday, September 7, 2008

I Know Polls Don't Tell Us Everything, But...

A USA Today/Gallup poll to be released Monday has John McCain up 54-44 over Barack Obama. This is a 17% change from a post-Republican Convention poll that showed McCain down 7%.

Obviously it is hard to know if this poll truly shows voter opinion, especially since a Gallup poll released today had McCain up 3%. That is still a convention "bounce" of 11%, since Gallup had Obama up 8% a week ago.

Rassmussen and Gallup polls released tomorrow will give us a better indication of the full impact of the Republican convention.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

CBS poll shows McCain has obliterated Obama's convention bounce

In a new poll, released from CBS News today, John McCain and Barack Obama are tied at 42% each.

The poll was taken over three days, from Monday, September 1 to Wednesday, September 3. This means that the effects of Gov. Sarah Palin's widely applauded speech at the Republican National Convention are largely excluded.

Interestingly enough, CBS News conducted a poll from Thursday to Saturday, which included feedback from the Democratic National Convention and a bit of the Sarah Palin announcement - the results showed Obama up by 8 points.

But now, that lead is completely gone. The answer cannot be completely due to the Republican Convention, which was largely a fundraiser on Monday and which will not conclude until Thursday.

Perhaps the public is reacting to the media treatment of Sarah Palin. Perhaps they liked Republican efforts to reach out to the Gulf Coast instead of continuing with politics as usual. Perhaps they liked what Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman had to say at the convention Wednesday night. Some of it must have been reaction to Rudy Guiliani and Gov. Palin on Wednesday.

We'll see what happens after McCain's speech tonight and how people react in the next couple of days. In addition, polls released later this week will fully reflect reaction to Gov. Palin's speech.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure - polls released yesterday by Rassmussen and Gallup show only that McCain has reduced Obama's lead by one point. We'll see what those polls show in the next few days before fulling knowing the impact of the Republican Convention and Palin's coming-out party.