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chipmunk stew said:
Then again, if this pattern is repeated across the country and his bump is concentrated in states he's likely to take anyway, then it may be obscuring a much smaller electoral college bump, or even a dip.
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Exactly, I do not give a damn about winning by popular vote. An electoral win is just fine, and that is what will be delivered.
 
Brainster said:
I thought of a way to reconcile this. Let's assume that McCain is getting about 5% support among black women, who make up about 13% of all women. That doesn't seem unreasonably low; Republicans generally get about 10% support from blacks in general and I assume there's stronger than usual support for the Democrat this time around since he's black (partly) as well. And let's go with the ABC News/WaPo and say that McCain's support among white women is 52%. We'll say the remaining 87% are white; that's obviously slightly off because of Asian women, but I'd suspect they vote more like whites than blacks. What does that indicate about McCain's overall level of support?

Black women: 5%*13%=0.65%
White women:52%*87%=45.24%
Totals: 45.89%

This would indicate that McCain has the overall support of right around 46% of all women. Which means (with error margins) that Obama could be at 52%.
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I can go with this. But, I still would like to know the margin of error for the white women sub-sample. Maybe some polls to come out over the next few weeks will measure this group better.
 
Rasmussen has Obama up by 1 today (48%-47%) ...

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ial_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

A Washington Post poll generated comment yesterday by noting that White Women favor McCain. Rasmussen Reports polling has consistently shown a similar result, but it is important to note that there is nothing unusual about this finding. Four years ago, President Bush managed to defeat Senator John Kerry 55% to 44% among white women. Today’s tracking poll data shows McCain leading 51% to 44% among this group. Among all women, Obama leads by eight. Among men, McCain leads by eight.
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Brainster said:
North Carolina moves strongly in the red column:



Of course, NC is a must-win for McCain and not for Obama. Still it helps McCain to have states like this taken off the board so he can concentrate on the usual battlegrounds.

671 likely voters, Sept 6-8. MOE not given but probably around 4.5%.
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Maybe not so strongly ...

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_910.pdf

McCain now leads Barack Obama 48-44 after holding a three point lead in PPP’s previous survey. The Republican nominee is benefiting from undecided white voters moving into his column.
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“With both conventions in the rear view mirror, North Carolina still appears to be competitive,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But it will probably take exceptional turnout from groups favorable to him to put Barack Obama over the top. He’s not going to win the state by persuading people who voted for Bush in 2004 to switch sides.”
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The 20 point lead in NC is an outlier, it's too soon to show that kind of a surge and with too little reason.

Obama won't win the state, he was never going to. But I'd be really surprised if McCain won by double digits.
 
Electoral vote projections tightening up!

I can't find the values from the last few weeks, but fivethirtyeight has the projected electoral vote totals at 275.1 for Obama vs. 262.9 for McCain...I don't recall McCain every being that close!

Methinks this one is going to be tough to call.
 
David Wong said:
By the way, this whole phenomenon of the fading convention "bounce" like three days later makes me laugh. Are our attention spans that short?

How many millions did they spend on these conventions, and then voters completely forget about them like two days later?
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The conventions, while well done, were not all that memorable. Yes, Obama filled a stadium, but it's not the first time he's done that. Yes, a woman spoke as a VP nominee, but the novelty of that is not what it once was.

What I think is hurting McCain in exploiting any potential bounce is ... Palin. While she's been included in campaign appearances, it looks more and more like she's just a cheerleader and not a player ready for the big leagues. Yes, she can read a good speech, but they seem to be sheltering her ever since she was picked. It's sink or swim time, and she's still standing by the pool getting instructions from her swimming coaches. I think this is limiting any bounce McCain might could've had with her.
 
Is Palin the cause for increased support for McCain among white women?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/10/is-palin-influencing-white-women-2/

These numbers appear to contradict findings from a recently released Washington Post/ABC News poll that suggested the Arizona senator gained 20 points among white women after Palin joined the ticket and prompted several stories of the Illinois senator's new problem with this key demographic.

But the CNN/ORC poll indicates McCain is even more popular among white women than Palin is (69 vs. 65 percent approval) — evidence his support among that demographic may be attributed to his own appeal, not Palin's. Obama and Joe Biden are also popular with white women, though not to quite the same degree: 58 percent said they held a favorable view of Obama while 55 percent said the same of Biden in the latest poll.

"White women have a favorable view of Sarah Palin, but they have a favorable view of Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well," Holland said.
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Interesting take on it.
 
Gallup has McCain still up by 5 today (48%-43%) ...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110212/Gallup-Daily-McCain-48-Obama-43.aspx

However, the experience of the past summer suggests that voter support levels do not tend to change dramatically during periods of time in which there are no major campaign events. Additionally, it may take a few additional days before it is possible to determine if McCain's modest lead over Obama -- developed as a bounce out of the GOP convention -- will be sustained, or if it will fade.
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One note regarding Gallup that I was mistaken about (not sure if I stated it here or not though), they don't weight their poll for party affiliation.
 
Unless I'm counting wrong, five days after the DNC Obama was up by 6 (49-43). Five days after the RNC, McCain is up by 5.

Obama's bounce faded three days later, but of course the RNC helped it fade.
 
David Wong said:
Unless I'm counting wrong, five days after the DNC Obama was up by 6 (49-43). Five days after the RNC, McCain is up by 5.

Obama's bounce faded three days later, but of course the RNC helped it fade.
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I'd take Gallup very cautiously. It could well just be their methodology that creates these kinds of swings. I don't think Obama was up by 8, just as I don't think McCain is up by 5 now. I think Rasmussen is probably the better indicator of what bounces there might have been.
 
Not sure what has caused this movement at InTrade; about the only thing I can surmise is that McCain's continued lead in Gallup is causing the traders to rate the race as a toss-up:



Easily the closest McCain has been to leading over there.
 
Two days later than I predicted:



Like I said, I'm not sure what's driving this today. Psychological barrier pierced?
 
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Brainster said:
Not sure what has caused this movement at InTrade; about the only thing I can surmise is that McCain's continued lead in Gallup is causing the traders to rate the race as a toss-up:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_977748c818db2536c.jpg[/qimg]

Easily the closest McCain has been to leading over there.
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Yep,

This prediction market has been very volitile (maybe they all have), and I wouldn't expect McCain to actually lead until a debate has been concluded (assuming he "bested" his opponent).

I think that it would take some serious event for McCain to have a long-duration 10-20 point prediction market lead like Obama had for quite a while.
 
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