Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 51-41. All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with R2K numbers from today (yesterday's numbers in parentheses) and the other trackers are from yesterday (previous day's data). LV=likely voter, RV=registered voter.
Today's trackers will have Sat-Mon post-debate data, and will not fully reflect post-debate sentiment. The trackers do, however, include McCain campaign suspension/resumption days, and it's the financial crisis that is driving these numbers.
Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Today
Research 2000: 51 (51) 41 (42) 3 LV
Rasmussen: 51 (50) 45 (45) 2 LV
Yesterday
Diageo/Hotline: 47 (47) 42 (42) 3.2 RV
Gallup: 50 (50) 42 (42) 2 RV
On successive days, Obama was up +9 Sat, +11 Sun and +11 Mon (MoE +/- 5.1 for individual days.)
One poll to highlight today: Gallup on the assessment of crisis response (click the pic for more readable graphic.)
In terms of winning over the political center where most swing voters reside, however, the jury still seems to be out. Obama and McCain receive nearly identical ratings from political independents for their handling of the Wall Street crisis, and they're not positive. Only about a third of independents approve of the way each candidate has responded.
This poll was taken before the collapse of the vote. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward. But as of now, the markets are not impressed. And one thing we do know:
The worst-rated political players on the Wall Street issue both come from the Bush administration -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, one of the chief authors of the original bailout plan, and President George W. Bush himself. Only 28% of Americans approve of how each has responded to the recent financial problems. Of the two, however, Bush has a net score that is significantly worse, as 68% disapprove of his performance, compared with 51% disapproving of Paulson's. A much greater number have no opinion of Paulson's performance than of Bush's (21% vs. 5%).
Bush, by the way, is a Republican. He may not get his calls returned these days, but he is a Republican. That would be the same party McCain belongs to, and McCain, of course took credit for passing the bill that did not pass, after non-suspending his campaign and non-leading on the bill's progress. In fact, he not only screwed up his leadership photo op, he also managed to encourage the wingnuttiest of the House Republican wingnuts (it's socialism! Socialism, I tell you... like the Post Office, highways and Medicare!!) How great is that? (sarcasm).
"I don’t think this was a failure of leadership so much as a failure of followership," said Thomas Mann, a scholar on Congress at the Brookings Institution. "This is a function of a group of House Republicans who are philosophically opposed to doing anything like this bailout and are prepared to take the risk."
In the meantime, keep a close eye on the worldwide McCain/Republican market crash today (yesterday's was 777 points, most ever, and 1.2 trillion lost value.) The markets don't care for excuses.
Speaking of markets, note that Intrade is now Obama 61.6 - McCain 37.5, with Obama up and McCain down by ~4.6 since yesterday. IEM is at 68.3 - 30.5. And fivethirtyeight.com hit 83% chance of of an Obama presidency. Those markets don't care for excuses, either.
Bonus: Pollster.com now permits you to personalize your poll graph. Dislike internet polls? Want only robo-calls? You have the power. My version is national Obama-McCain without Zogby Internet.
Addendum: There's no gloating. The Gallup poll shows there's plenty of unhappy to go around about all institutions, but there is a leadership black hole in the WH right now that underlies the gridlock, and no one else wants to own the bill. That's a fact, reflected in the Gallup numbers.