9/23 Daily Kos R2K Tracking Poll: Obama 49, McCain 43

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 49-43 (Likely Voters, MoE +/- 3). All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with R2K (ours) from today and the others from yesterday.

             Obama  McCain  MoE +/-  RV/LV
Research 2000:  49    43    3        LV
Diageo/Hotline: 47    42    3.2      RV  
Rasmussen:      48    47    2        LV
Gallup:         48    44    2        RV

CNN/ORC:        51    47    3        LV (51-46 Registered Voters, polling Fri-Sun)

Our last three days of polling are Obama +6 Sa, +4 Su, +6 Mo. These small movements are all well within the MoE, especially any one day sample (+/- 5.1).

Today's internals show no large movement (I'm expecting none before the debates) in the last few days. Women, where were +9 Obama on 9/11, are now +17, and 60+, which were +15 McCain, are now +9.

We seem to have returned to the steady, slight Obama lead we had before either convention (like the one the media didn't recognize until it was gone, and then all of a sudden "McCain overtakes Obama", as if we all knew Obama had been leading. Most people don't know it if the media doesn't say it.)

Some polling tidbits:

• Diageo/Hotline says:

  In terms of perceived performance on other issues, McCain maintains his new lead over Obama on managing America's energy policies, (44% - 42%), and continues to rank better in perceived performance on national security, (54% - 37%). On the other hand, Obama has significantly widened his lead on perceived performance on healthcare from a 9-point difference in the September 18 Poll, to a 16-point lead in today's Poll, (50% - 34%).

• Lifetime has a poll getting some play, showing McCain-Palin is making strides with women, at least in terms of understanding them. That number (McCain 44-Obama 42, a big jump for McCain) is very different than who women will vote for.

  The women polled favored the Obama/Biden ticket 57 to 32 percent on which candidate "will help middle class families the most." Polling has shown all year that the economy tops voters' concerns.

  Note that the poll was conducted almost entirely prior to 9/15 (Black Monday was 9/15, and the poll was 9/11-9/15.) It will be interesting to see the same poll repeated when Obama has regained his lead, as he has as of this week.



• We're not the only ones noticing Sarah Palin's fav/unfav. PPP has it at 38/47 in all-important CO. The full poll is out this am, though not as of this writing.


• How relevant is the Wall Street meltdown?

  A new CNN/Opinion Research CorporationPoll suggests that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country the past few weeks — one factor that may have contributed to an apparent increase in Barack Obama’s edge over John McCain in the race for the White House.

  Topline? Obama 51-Mccain 46

  These numbers appear to be affecting the battle for the presidency. Fifty-one percent of registered voters are backing Obama, who now holds a 5 point edge over McCain, at 46 percent. McCain and Obama were tied at 48 percent apiece in the previous CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey. Obama's advantage, while growing, is still within the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

  Where did Obama make his gains?

  "In two core McCain constituencies: Men, who now narrowly favor Obama. And seniors, who have also flipped from McCain to Obama," says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.

• A new political site, Simulating the 2008 Presidential Election, uses Intrade market data to run projections. It currently predicts a 3:2 chance of Obama reaching 270 electoral votes.


• McCain 2008 does worse than Bush 2004 in rural polling.

  Republican presidential nominee John McCain leads Democratic rival Barack Obama by 10 percentage points, 51 percent to 41 percent, among rural voters in 13 pivotal states, a [Center for Rural Studies] poll released on Monday shows.

  ...

  The rural race is more competitive than four years ago, said Tim Marema of the nonprofit Center for Rural Strategies, of Whitesburg, Kentucky, which commissioned the poll, conducted last week. At this point in 2004, President George W. Bush had a 13-point rural lead over John Kerry on his way to re-election.

• Nate Silver reports on a conversation with Real Clear Politics about why they do not include the Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll.

  They decided that they had to draw a line in the sand, and will not be including any more "new" tracking polls that do not have a history of polling the national horse race. This would include the Research 2000 poll, but also things like Insider Advantage, which put out some national numbers a couple of weeks ago, or the Big Ten poll released last week, which also included a national trial heat.

  For the record, there are no complaints about the quality of the poll, or the pollster.

• Nick Panagakis at pollster.com opines on the meaning of Hillary cross-over votes. Maybe it's important, maybe not.

  In three of those last four elections Democrats won the popular vote overcoming the 10%-11% Democratic cross-overs who voted for the Republican. So the question becomes: will that 2.8% of Clinton cross-over voters add to those numbers or be mostly included in those numbers?