10/9 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 51, McCain 41

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 the R2K numbers from today (yesterday's numbers in parentheses) and the other trackers from yesterday (previous day's data). LV=likely voter, RV=registered voter.

                 Obama      McCain    MoE +/-   RV/LV
Today
Research 2000:  51 (51)    41 (41)    3         LV
Reuters/Zogby:  48 (47)    44 (45)    2.8       LV
Battleground:   48 (49)    45 (45)    3.5       LV
Rasmussen:      50 (51)    45 (45)    2         LV
Diageo/Hotline: 47 (45)    41 (44)    3.2       LV  
Gallup:         52 (52)    41 (41)    2         RV

Yesterday
Ipsos:          47 (46)    40 (42)    3.3       RV

On successive days in the R2K poll, Obama was up +9 Mon, +8 Tues and +12 Wed. The highest Obama single day lead was +13. Wednesday's sample was picking up post-debate polling. Obama's number remains steadily at or above 50. Sarah Palin's fav/unfav today is at - 17, an all-time low. McCain's is at - 7, also an all-time low.

Note that the Biden win in the VP debate was picked up in the tracking polls as soon as they were able to measure the public's response, and the tracker response matched the insta-response. With this second Presidential debate, the overwhelming insta-poll data says Obama won this second debate. So far, the R2K tracker is in line with that POV.

For those expressing concern about the R2K results (+10 Obama), note that with yesterday's polls R2K did not have the highest Obama (52 from Gallup) or the lowest McCain (40 from Ipsos) numbers. Gallup had the largest spread (+11) and Diageo/Hotline had the smallest (+1). Gallup's Dem, Rep and Independent demographic numbers are very similar to R2K's (+9 Dem). Diageo/Hotline is +2 Dem and has the tightest spread.

On the race, Scott Rasmussen says:

For the past thirteen days, Obama’s support has ranged from 50% to 52% while McCain has been at 44% of 45% every day (see trends).

Gallup says:

Voter preferences seem to have stabilized for the moment, as Obama has held a double-digit lead over McCain in each of the last three individual nights of polling.

On the debate, Amy Sullivan commenting on a Stan Greenberg focus group:

The voters awarded Obama the "win" (38% to 30%, with the rest choosing no clear winner). But that result was actually the least useful of the evening. Because while the earlier debate did not result in any net change in support for the two candidates, Obama walked away with a clear lead in new voters tonight. After the debate ended, 26% of the audience had become McCain supporters while 42% said they planned to vote for Obama. Only a quarter of the group was still undecided.

Even more dramatic was the shift in the voters’ personal reactions to the two candidates. Before the debate, McCain had a 48/46 favorability rating; that improved to 56/36 by the end. But that’s about where Obama started the evening—54/36. After an hour and a half, Obama’s favorability numbers were 80/14. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 80% of the undecided voters had favorable views of Obama and only 14% saw him negatively for a net rating of +66. Not even Bill Clinton got such a warm response in town hall formats.

The Ipsos poll shows Palin lost credibility after her debate with Joe Biden:

Her 37-54 fav/unfav do not put her in a good position to attack. The Republican base cannot win this election by itself, and the damage Palin odes will reverberate beyond November. The conservative pundits sounding the alarm about Palin know this, even if the McCain campaign does not care.

And a good "wording matters" example from Ipsos (questions rotated between bailout and step in and rescue):

When you think about the problems on Wall Street is it better for the government to step in and rescue the financial markets or is it better if the government does not rescue the financial markets?

(433 respondents)
Is it better for the government to step in and rescue the financial markets 52
Is it better if the government does not rescue the financial markets 41
DK/NS 7

When you think about the problems on Wall Street is it better for the government to bailout the financial markets or is it better if the government does not bailout the financial markets?

(425 respondents)
Is it better for the government to bailout the financial markets 42
Is it better if the government does not bailout the financial markets 51
DK/NS 7

Here are the generic congressional numbers from R2K:

Finally, the last word from Mark Blumenthal:

My NationalJournal.com column this week reviews the three big sources of worry among pollsters and others about the accuracy of polling this fall: the potential that pollsters are missing voters in "cell phone only" households, the potential that "likely voter models" may be missing certain types of voters and the worries about the Bradley-Wilder effect.

We have covered all of these topics before and my plan is to devote a column to each over the next three weeks because while everyone is speculating, we probably know more than we think we do empirically, about the potential for error from all three sources.