10/18 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 50%(-2), McCain 43%(+1)

[Hope And Change]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/18/73414/589/773/633837

[my3boyz]

1. Darn people are stupid! McCain gives that awful debate performance

and he gets a bump. Ridiculous.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I did post grad work in Poli Sci and I am flummoxed by the voting habits of the American people

~

[No Elephants]

11. My guess: The bump is not from McCain's debate performance. It's a combo of

fake Joe, the unlicensed, lying plumber and the robo calls.

[my3boyz]

2. Could be because it is a Friday night sample and a lot of Obama

supporters (younger ones) are out.

[regnaD kciN]

12. No, because...

...the previous night's sample was worse. For whatever reason, from Wednesday night to Thursday night, about 3%-4% of Obama's support just disappeared. (Maybe, although polls showed Obama "won" Wednesday night's debate, those who thought so had already decided to vote for Obama, while those who thought McCain won included a lot of undecideds who moved to his camp on Thursday?) :shrug:

[sarahdemva]

4. Damn

what is going on? one thing that is happening is we are off message again. The economy is tanking and some stupid idiot joe the plumber is the big news.

[my3boyz]

5. True. Guess the media figures they better ignore the economy if they want to help McCain.

Gergen said it was probably tightening because the Republicans are coming home (ones that were on the fence or leaning towards Obama). I guess we should expect that the battleground states will tighten again. Usually the national numbers tighten and then the battleground numbers.

[sarahdemva]

9. Our team needs to get MAD!!

Fight any way we can to win. IT IS THAT IMPORTANT!!

[RBInMaine]

6. Get back on message with the ECONOMY and ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK McSAME !! The robo calls and hate

mailers on the McSAME side WILL have an impact on some undecideds. Make no mistake about that. And, if they see it is working, they WILL keep it up. The Obama camp needs to send out their own robo calls and emails debunking the McSAME smears as baseless fearmongering and talk about how he is only doing it to distract voters because he FAILS on the economy. There are still about 10% undecided. This is FAR from over. ALL DEMS, STAY IN THE GAME AND FIGHT LIKE HELL !!

[steve2470]

7. I think some whites are really having to struggle with their feelings about racism

I'm not surprised it goes up and down a little. However, I think the explanations here are good as well.

[Indenturedebtor]

20. Whites aren't the only racists

But I don't think that racism is a good candidate for this up and down... I think it's likely more down to sampling error.

[MoJoWorkin]

8. Looks like a loss among white(men/women equally) in the 30-59 age category

in the Midwest,West,South (he actually did better in Northeast.)It was a one or two point fluctuation in this set of demographics.

Negative smear working a bit--hopefully not long term.


This is not all bad, as it will just motivate everyone to work harder.

[CreekDog]

10. two explanations: 1) debate had red meat for base R's 2) McCain not getting beat up by the media

for his rallies as he was a little over a week ago (that was pushing his numbers down artificially). and while the debate was an overall loss for him, the abortion red meat woke up a small number of his wavering base to flock back to him.

[fugop]

13. Better coverage

McCain had all that "underdog" coverage early in the week leading up to the debate, too. Even though his speech was a retread and his economic plan sucked, he got a lot of boost, I thought, from the media. And he was pretty much all they talked about debate day - what can he do to win, here's what he should do to win, etc., etc. I think that all played as a positive for him. Then came Joe the Plumber and all that bullshit. Here's hoping that a possible big endorsement tomorrow (not counting on it, but still) and the cash announcement starts the week of with a bang. Plus, all the coverage of the robo-calls might hit McCain back down again.

[Zynx]

15. Yeah. The media have given him a lot more facetime. To the extent this is actual movement at all

that's probably what it is.

[WeDidIt]

14. It's aJoe the Plmuber bump

The Thursday results were from prior to the information starting to come out about Samuel.

[WI_DEM]

16. Why don't people just calm down. For weeks this tracking poll was dismissed because Obama was doing

so much better than all the others. Now it's come down to earth and Obama is up by 7 and people go into a funk. Look at the demos of the poll before posting. Except for the South Obama is up everywhere. Thursday's sample Obama was up by only 6, yesterday he was up by 7 in one day polling. Stop all the panic.

[Hope And Change]

17. Agreed.

[Danger Mouse]

18. It's kind of funny. One poll and everybody starts to panic.

Sigh.

[WI_DEM]

22. And the poll is still better than other tracking polls like Rasmussen.

Which has Obama up by 4 compared to this one which has him up by 7. Hell, if Obama goes into the election with a 3-point lead in the national polls I'm feeling pretty good.

[Teaser]

24. 5 today :)

:)

[jefferson_dem]

19. The margin was Obama +7 yesterday.

I imagine that's about where the race stands.

National numbers are fun but, as we know, it's all about the battleground states. Obama is swamping the airwaves in those and SO FAR we haven't seen the slightest bit of negative trends anywhere we really care about (i've got my eye on you Ohio!).

So...stay focused everyone! And keep working! Onward!

[DemsUnited]

21. When polls are so strong that Obama has to say "don't underestimate Dems ability to screw it up"

and to "remember New Hampshire", THAT'S something to worry about.

A consistent 5-7 point lead with Obama between 49 - 52%, that's a good place to be. Strong, but not too strong that people are complacent. It's a real worry that folks will say, "oh, he's going to win Virginia anyway so why should I stand in that 2 hour line. He doesn't really need my vote." Or, "the Obama folks are running so strong he doesn't really need me to take a vacation day for GOTV volunteering."

To me, this Daily Kos poll is good. Now, if it gets much tighter, then I'll be crying.

[Teaser]

23. Regression to the mean, folks

a 4-7 lead is where this thing is, and really has been.


We were NEVER going to win by 12. Not in this universe.