Polling Update

Observations From A   Handful of Cities That Could Prove to Be Electoral Key

Newspaper poll shows Obama up 7 points in Ohio

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. For each of the past ten days, Obama has been at 50% or 51% and McCain has been at 44% or 45%. (see trends).

Tracking Poll results are released every day at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and a FREE daily e-mail update is available.

Forty-five percent (45%) of voters say they are certain they will vote for Obama and will not change their mind. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say the same about McCain. Thirteen percent (13%) currently have a preference for one of the candidates but might change their mind. Four percent (4%) are either undecided or plan to vote for a third-party candidate.

One way of understanding the difficult challenge now facing McCain is to consider the relatively small group of persuadable voters who could still change their mind. The Republican hopeful would have to win nearly 80% of those votes to pull ahead in the race. That’s especially challenging because most of those voters are currently leaning towards Obama. In other words, while the race is not over, McCain needs a significant--game-changing—event to win the White House. Simply doing what he’s been doing a little better will not be enough.

There’s no mystery as to why the race has moved in Obama’s direction--it’s the economy. Just before Lehman Brothers collapsed and made visible Wall Street’s problems, 24% of voters said the nation was heading in the right direction. Since then, even that relatively low number has fallen sharply and is now in single digits for the first time ever. Today, just 9% of voters now say that the United States is heading in the right direction. Eighty-eight percent (88%) disagree and say the nation has gotten off on the wrong track.

At the same time that the number who say the nation is heading in the right direction has fallen, Obama’s support has steadily increased. In fact, his level of support has not fallen by even a single point on a single day for any of the twenty-four days dating back to September 12. He was supported by 46% of voters on September 12 and 13 before inching up to 47% for four days. Then, he was at 48% for six days and 49% for two days. Obama hit the 50% mark on September 26 and stayed there for four days before earning 51% support for each of the past six days.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters now trust Obama more than McCain on the economy while 42% hold the opposite view. Given the importance of the economic issues in Election 2008, it’s not a coincidence that these numbers so closely mirror the overall voter preferences in the tracking poll.

Obama is viewed favorably by 57% of voters, McCain by 53% (see trends). Rasmussen Markets data shows Obama is given a 65.2 % chance of winning in November (see market expectations for key states).

For a look at other key polling data, see our weekly review of What They Told Us.

Obama is opening a growing lead in the Electoral College projections and recent statewide Presidential polls have been released For:   Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana,Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico,  North Carolina,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and    Washington. Demographic crosstabs for all state polling are available for Premium Members. Learn More.

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator shows Obama leading in states with 217 Electoral College votes while McCain has the edge in states with 174 votes. When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 264-185 (see Quick Campaign Overview). There are currently six states in the Toss-Up category—Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia. If Obama were to win all the states that are currently leaning in his direction, he would need to win only one of those six toss-up states to become the nation’s next President.

A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House (see 50-State Summary).

See results from recent polling on Senate races.

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 5-11, 2008, the partisan weighting targets used by Rasmussen Reports will be 39.3% Democratic, 33.3% Republican, and 27.4% 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.

 McCain Leaves An Angry Michigan