Monday, July 28, 2008

McCain gains in latest USA Today/Gallup poll

USA Today just posted the following at its political blog and the news sure surprised me. I comment below the star line.

USA Today - - -

Republican presidential candidate John McCain moved from being behind by 6 points among "likely" voters a month ago to a 4-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama among that group in the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. McCain still trails slightly among the broader universe of "registered" voters. By both measures, the race is tight.

The Friday-Sunday poll, mostly conducted as Obama was returning from his much-publicized overseas trip and released just this hour, shows McCain now ahead 49%-45% among voters that Gallup believes are most likely to go to the polls in November.

In late June, he was behind among likely voters, 50%-44%.

Among registered voters, McCain still trails Obama, but by less. He is behind by 3 percentage points in the new poll (47%-44%) vs. a 6-point disadvantage (48%-42%) in late June.

Results based on the survey of 791 likely voters have margins of error of +/- 4 percentage points -- so McCain's lead is not outside that range. Results based on the survey of 900 registered voters also have margins of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

Gallup editor Frank Newport tells Jill that "registered voters are much more important at the moment," because Election Day is still 100 days away, but that the likely-voter result suggests that it may be possible for McCain to energize Republicans and turn them out this fall. . . .

The rest of the post's here.
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Comments:

As I said, I'm surprised.

For one thing, it was only yesterday we were hearing about Sen. Obama's "commending 9-point lead" according to a recent Gallup poll.

For another thing, the June and July "likely voter" polls show a 10-point shift in Sen. McCain's favor.

That's impressive under any circumstances, but especially so for occurring at a time when McCain has been having obvious trouble organizing his campaign and Obama was finishing his grand "Save the World" tour.

What is your reaction?

Hat tip to Tom Beven at whose Realclearpolitics.com blog I found the USA Today/Gallup results.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any reasonable and rational person who actually read or heard Saint Obama's words when he addressed the Germans would conclude that substance was sorely lacking. He filled the air with platitudes. St. Obama is an attractive person with a wonderful speaking voice but he is, at best, a very superficial candidate. He tells us time and again he's "against" this or that, but rarely does he explain how he would do it better.
As for the lament among the glitterati who attend his apparitions that the world hates us and St. Obama will make them love us--I don't give a tinker's dam whether some backward Muslim or some haughty Frenchman loves us. We became an independent nation when we realized the Europeans were all hopelessly corrupt and oppressed their people. We didn't want to be like them. Now our "educated" fellow Americans want us to be like the Germans and the French (who have been at each other's throats since time immemorial). If you want to be loved by a bunch of arrogant and unwashed foreigners, by all means cast your vote for St. Obama. For my part, I don't see any reason to suck up to any foreign nation.
Tarheel Hawkeye

Anonymous said...

John:

"What is your reaction?"

Whatever were we thinking?

Ken
Dallas

Anonymous said...

John in Carolina,.

I know this is a little off topic however, over at DiW Professor Johnson makes the following statement:

Alone among the 2008 presidential candidates, Obama endorsed a Justice Department criminal investigation of Nifong. So if Obama rather than George W. Bush had been president in 2007, Nifong very likely would be on his way to jail.
http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2008/07/nifong-contributes-to-obama.html

I believe the Professor Johnson's proof of this is weak.
In a previous post he states:
1. that the above was first mentioned in Liestoppers which;
2. was confirmed by the following link: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/LegalCenter/story?id=2980582&page=1

ABCNews in turn offers us this as their source:
Obama's comments were first posted on "Liestoppers," an online blog and forum on the Duke Lacrosse case. The user who posted them, known on that forum by the alias "sceptical," was the constituent who corresponded with Obama about the case.

Have you ever hear of any public comment by Senator Obama which supports the DiW assertion?

CC: DiW

Anonymous said...

John -

Dittos to Tarheel Hawkeye. But I would amend his last comment to: It you want to to be loved by a bunch of arrogant socialists and unwashed foreigners ...

BTW if you want to read a great parody about St. Barack, you can find it here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol
/comment/columnists/gerard_baker
/article4392846.ece

Jack in Silver Spring

Anonymous said...

58% of Europeans are basically jealous of the US and want us to be weaker. Not incidentally, Europeans overwhelmingly support Obama over McCain.

Does anybody know how many of Obama's speech crowds are fluffed up by having free rock concerts as warm up acts?

Anonymous said...

"If you want to be loved by a bunch of arrogant and unwashed foreigners, by all means cast your vote for St. Obama. For my part, I don't see any reason to suck up to any foreign nation.
Tarheel Hawkeye"

So, that would that include not sending our troops to fight and die to make the world safe for Israel?

If so, then I agree. We have spilled enough blood and treasure for Israel and it is time to pull back and let her make peace with her neighbors.

It is also time to dissolve NATO, pull out of the UN, abandon Iraq and Afghanistan.

Anonymous said...

Anon @11.46:
If you're looking for disagreement from me, look elsewhere. I'm tired of being Israel's enabler and Saudi Arabia's cash cow. If we became truly neutral in all the hatred and religious fratricide that goes on in the Middle East, perhaps we wouldn't be targeted by the lunatics who think their god is better than our god.
Tarheel Hawkeye