Lead lost, just like I predicted the very little boost McCain won in last Tuesday’s debate when Obama played defense to McCain’s offense (BTW a smart move when you are leading) has faded in the light & reality of the possibility of Sarah Palin being just one heartbeat from being under the desk in the oval office to actually sitting in the big chair. Some very good research links included.
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Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while [John McCain
http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/mag-glass_10x10.gif](http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll#) earns 45%. This is the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the final Presidential debate and shows that the race continues to remain quite stable. Obama’s support has ranged from 50% to 52% every day for twenty-four straight days while McCain’s total has been between 44% and 46% during those days.
Tracking Poll results are released every day at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and a FREE daily e-mail updateis available.
Prior to today, Obama had led by four or five points every day for the past week. The week before, the Democrat was up by five to eight points each day (see trends).
Obama is viewed favorably by 55%, McCain by 52%. Those figures include 40% with a Very Favorable opinion of Obama and 30% with a Very Unfavorable opinion of him. For McCain, the comparable numbers are 23% Very Favorable and 24% Very Unfavorable.
Polling data on “Joe the Plumber” will be released later today (Premium Memberscan get an advance look at the data now).
Each Saturday morning, we take a look at key polls from the past week to see “What They Told Us.”
Rasmussen Reports data indicates that Obama currently has the edge in every state won by John Kerry four years ago. However, of the states won by George Bush, McCain is trailing in four and five others are considered a toss-up. As a result, Electoral College projectionsnow show Obama leading 260-163. When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 300-174. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House.
Take a moment to predict how many Electoral College votes Obama will winthis year.
Recent statewide Presidential polls have been released for Arizona,California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois,Kansas, Kentucky, Kansas,Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana,Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire,New Mexico,North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin*Demographic crosstabs for all state polling are available for Premium Members. *Learn More.
Rasmussen Markets data shows Obama is given a 83.6 % chance of winning in November (see market expectations for key states).
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 1,000 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 3,000 Likely Voters–is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for the full-week results are available for Premium Members.
Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology).Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. During the final two months of Election 2008, party weighting targets are updated each Sunday (see additional information). For polling data released during the week of October 12-18, 2008, the partisan weighting targets used by Rasmussen Reports will be 39.3% Democratic, 33.0% Republican, and 27.7% unaffiliated.
A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls, our Quick Campaign Overview and a 50-State Summary of the Presidential Race.