WaPo Poll: It's The Economy, Stupid - Obama Leads By 9

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 06:43:36 AM EST
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The latest WaPo poll leaves no doubt - "it's the economy, stupid:"

Turmoil in the financial industry and growing pessimism about the economy have altered the shape of the presidential race, giving Democratic nominee Barack Obama the first clear lead of the general-election campaign over Republican John McCain, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national poll.

. . . More voters trust Obama to deal with the economy, and he currently has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the economic problems Americans now face. He also has a double-digit advantage on handling the current problems on Wall Street, and as a result, there has been a rise in his overall support. The poll found that, among likely voters, Obama now leads McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent. . . .

More...

Last week's near-meltdown in the financial markets and the subsequent debate in Washington over a proposed government bailout of troubled financial institutions have made the economy even more important in the minds of voters. Fully 50 percent called the economy and jobs the single most important issue that will determine their vote, up from 37 percent two weeks ago. . . . Two weeks ago, McCain held a substantial advantage among white voters, including newfound strength with white women. In the face of bad economic news, the two candidates now run about evenly among white women, and Obama has narrowed the overall gap among white voters to five percentage points.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

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WaPo Poll: It's The Economy, Stupid - Obama Leads By 9 | 50 comments (50 topical)

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One poll is one poll (5.00 / 3) (#5)
by Steve M on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:32:13 AM EST

but it's a very nice thought to start the day with!

I'll (none / 0) (#2)
by sas on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:25:47 AM EST

wait for SUSA.

Why? (5.00 / 0) (#3)
by bluegal on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:28:52 AM EST

SUSA doesn't do national polls that often. CNN showed Obama over 50% as well as have several other polls.

As much as I disagree with James Carville he said that last week ended the election unless Obama makes some big gaffe. I agree. McCain has been just awful in this crisis and apparently the public agrees.


I don't believe (5.00 / 0) (#4)
by flyerhawk on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:29:06 AM EST

that SUSA does a national poll.


: hence (1.00 / 1) (#16)
by progrocks on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:37:30 AM EST

it serves the author of the comments purpose. Ostrich reality.

I think (5.00 / 0) (#7)
by WS on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:55:49 AM EST

SUSA does state polls. There's a definite O trend now.


If SUSA shows similar figures that would just (3.00 / 2) (#6)
by JoeA on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:45:42 AM EST

ruin your day wouldn't it.


another skewed poll (none / 0) (#8)
by glennmcgahee on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:55:53 AM EST

Oversampled with African Americans.Why do theypublish these polls and then state that they oversampled to be sure that African Americans were represented. The voting booth willtell the story. These polls mean nothing when they do this.

How so? (none / 0) (#11)
by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:04:33 AM EST

What is your theory that A-As are overrepresented?


In this poll (none / 0) (#15)
by Steve M on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:28:42 AM EST

Whites favor McCain by 5 points, while blacks favor Obama by 87 points.

In 2004, there were 7 times as many whites as blacks at the polls. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, it will be exactly the same. Then the numbers above would suggest Obama with a 6.5 point lead.

Of course, not everyone is white or black, cough cough. In 2004, there were roughly as many "other" voters as there were African-Americans. Let's arbitrarily give Obama this category by a 60-40 margin. The result - do the math yourself - is a 9 point lead for Obama!

It really has nothing to do with whether blacks were oversampled or not, although I don't see where he gets that from either. McCain simply cannot win if he only wins white voters 50-45. Bush won white voters 58-41 and he barely won the election.


They admit the oversampling but then clarify...... (5.00 / 1) (#20)
by ks on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:08:11 AM EST

"This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone September 19-22, 2008, among a random national sample of 1,082 adults, 916 registered voters and 780 likely voters. The survey includes additional interviews with randomly selected African Americans, for a total of 163 black respondents. The added interviews (commonly referred to as an "oversample") were completed to ensure there were enough African American respondents for separate analysis; the group was not over-represented in the reported results from the full sample. The results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Error margins are higher for subgroups. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa."


That's SOP (5.00 / 1) (#22)
by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:09:19 AM EST

I know the dumb right wng blogs do not understand this but it is a long time practice. Consider it a separate sub poll.


Um, go back to poll reading school (1.00 / 1) (#24)
by andgarden on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:22:06 AM EST

Um, is there such a thing? (5.00 / 1) (#28)
by ks on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:32:26 AM EST

Um, I was just responding to the original assertion and followup comments

Um, I don't have a problem with the polls methodology though the final result, +9 Obama, seems off.

Um, try better snark next time.


I actually think I misread your comment (5.00 / 1) (#29)
by andgarden on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:35:58 AM EST

Sorry.


: No problem! (none / 0) (#32)
by ks on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:44:54 AM EST

My understanding of that is this: (none / 0) (#35)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:59:54 AM EST

The pollsters know that AAs are a certain fraction of the population, but when they randomly choose households, they don't quite get to that number.

In order to fully represent the demographics, they keep sampling AAs until they get the 12% that is representative of the general population.

Does that make sense?


Actually no (5.00 / 1) (#43)
by Steve M on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:12:59 AM EST

what it means is that there's no special weighting in the top-line results (where it says McCain gets X percent and Obama gets Y), but they polled additional African-Americans simply so they had a proper sample size to ask questions of that subgroup.

For example, let's say you want to ask people for their most important issue. You poll 1000 people, which statistics tell you is a good enough sample size. But if you want to know what issue blacks see as most important, you only have 100 blacks or so in your sample, and you can't draw any good conclusions from only talking to 100 people. So they talk to additional black respondents, not to weight the Obama/McCain question, but simply to be able to say "we have a large enough sample size of black respondents to be able to say how black people feel." Does that make sense?


: No, but it is a way to find out (none / 0) (#44)
by Cream City on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:17:11 AM EST

what they think.
(If we're going to be precise, as I was taught to be about what polls can tell us, there is a difference between "feel" and "think.":-)
Bottom line: I don't see the question on this, as this pollster makes clear that, as you say, the extra polling was accounted for to not affect the overall McCain-Obama result.
I continue to be more concerned about the oddities not re race but re RVs and LVs.

: yes. (none / 0) (#45)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:17:18 AM EST

but at that point how do they add their inflated AA numbers back into the general poll questions? Do they weight it by census demographics?

Sure (none / 0) (#21)
by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:08:20 AM EST

I was curious what the commenter was referring to.


Can you explain another oddity (none / 0) (#34)
by Cream City on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:49:50 AM EST

it seems to me -- that the poll has almost a fourth of RVs, registered voters, not registered at their current addresses . . . but apparently they are counted in the LVs, likely voters? All are in same-day registration states and plan on standing in long lines (and slowing down the rest of us) or will get themselves to their city halls or town halls or village halls ahead of time, etc.?

I think I follow the flipping back and forth in this poll from RVs to LVs otherwise -- except that it well past time now for pollsters to switch to likely voters. But that's a larger point.


You keep bringing that up, and I agree (none / 0) (#46)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:17:51 AM EST

it would be nice to know what that's all about.


Well, at least someone agrees (none / 0) (#48)
by Cream City on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:37:06 AM EST

and I appreciate that. I was beginning to wonder if I ought to recall as defective my past surveys that would not have passed muster with that oddity.


: The interesting thing about it, IMO (none / 0) (#50)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:59:44 AM EST

is that there are past results (from several years)that show a trend from few respondents to many.
Is this because we are such a transferable society, because of frequent job and home changes? What?

"National" polls don't mean much. (none / 0) (#9)
by vector on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 07:58:54 AM EST

Like it or not, this is really a state-by-state race.

I'll feel a lot more comfortable when I see Obama with a 8 or 9 percent lead in Ohio. Right now, he's still trailing - at least according to the fairly recent Ohio Newspaper Poll. See: http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2008/09/ONOpoll.pdf (sorry, I'm new at posting here, and I don't know how to do the "linking words" thing yet).

Also, when I see the various "electoral vote" poll websites, I almost never see Obama much above 265 or 270. That means his winning margin is ONE state. If the election turns out that way, then all the GOP has to do is find a Dem state with a corrupt GOP-led Supreme Court to make a ruling that basically cancels Obama's victory.

It's not too hard. Here's a scenario. Democrats swept practically every statewide elected position in Ohio in '06, but the GOP currently holds every seat on the Ohio Supreme Court.

It's not difficult to imagine, if Obama narrowly wins Ohio, for the GOP to find some excuse to have the results thrown out by the Ohio Supremes, thereby allowing the conservative Ohio legislature to give Ohio's electoral votes to McCain (the legislature is also still GOP controlled).

Sorry if I sound paranoid, but bad memories of 2000 and 2004 atill linger in my head.

PS: It could be VERY narrow in Ohio, if Nader gets the 4 to 6 percent that the polls keep showing.

Really? (1.00 / 1) (#17)
by progrocks on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:41:10 AM EST

you are really worried about Nader getting 6%?

People need to try hard to make their McPalin dreams come true these days


Oy (none / 0) (#10)
by Big Tent Democrat on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:04:02 AM EST

You REALLY believe Obama could win the national race by 9 and lose the election? Hell, do you think he could win by 3 and lose?

In a way, I think that would be a great thing - it would end the electoral college for all time - which is a travesty.


According to Nate at 538 (none / 0) (#13)
by JoeA on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:17:21 AM EST

the way the states are stacking up just now if anything it looks more likely that Obama could win the Electoral College even while losing the Popular Vote by 2%.


It's (none / 0) (#18)
by Ga6thDem on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:00:55 AM EST

more likely that McCain would win the electoral college and lose the popular vote than Obama. The electoral college has a natural bias toward the GOP.

538 is a joke. The last time I looked there they had OH going to Obama which is contrary to almost every poll out there.


Um (5.00 / 3) (#23)
by bluegal on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:09:20 AM EST

First, 538 isn't just factoring the latest polling but he also does a regression. Currently, they have an equal shot at Ohio which is what is showing up in the polling. Unless you are a stats person and a credible one who holds a degree from one of the most respected universities in terms of stats and econ I think you are off.

Second, the opposite is more likely to happen in that Obama would win the EC but lose the popular vote.

Of course, none of this matters to you as you are the infamous bash Obama commenter no matter what!


Explain to me how. He's got pretty good (5.00 / 1) (#26)
by Teresa on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:26:42 AM EST

leads in many states and where he trails, it's pretty small. I could see him being "Gored" much more than losing the electoral college but winning the popular vote.


Actually (none / 0) (#30)
by bluegal on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:37:07 AM EST

That would be precisely the reason why he could lose the popular vote but win the ec. McCain is going to run up his numbers in red states and Obama in blue states. Technically there are more solid red states where Obama could be blown out than there are solid blue states where McCain could be blown out by say 15+ points.

Those purples states if Obama squeaks out 10-50K wins could put him behind in the popular vote while winning the EC. I'm thinking about this in places like Virginia, CO, NC, and PA.


More states (none / 0) (#31)
by CST on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:41:39 AM EST

does not mean more voters. The blue states tend to have higher populations than the red states. If Obama wins blue states by 5-10% and McCain wins red states by 5-10% Obama has more votes because there are a lot more people in NY, NJ, CA, etc... than there are in places like Nebraska (Texas being the obvious exception).

History disagrees with you as well...


You are missing what I'm saying (none / 0) (#51)
by bluegal on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 11:12:56 AM EST

McCain is swamping Obama in deep red states and the GOP enthusiasm because of Palin in those states could allow him to run up the numbers there.

The reason why W. lost the popular vote was because he was spending time in places like California where he was going to lose anyways instead of running up the score in states like Ohio and Florida. IIRC Gore lost Ohio by about 150K votes and his campaign said they wished they had spent more time in Ohio because he could have won it but they were running out of money.

John McCain IMO could play like Al Gore running up the popular vote while Obama instead of running up the score in solid blue states just plays to eek out wins in places like VA and PA.


: I get what you are trying to say (none / 0) (#52)
by CST on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 11:27:11 AM EST

I disagree. McCain can "run up the numbers" in deep red states and it doesn't mean much because those states have low populations. Ohio and Florida are not deep red states where McCain can run up the score - they are pruple states. It's just not going to happen in an election this close.
The fact is, running up the score in red states is not the same as running up the score in blue states. They just don't have the people.
If Obama doesn't run up the score in blue states, but has a solid lead, and only eeks out a win in purple states while McCain runs up the score in red states, Obama will still probably win the popular vote. This isn't a two-way street.

Remember that Obama still needs (none / 0) (#33)
by gtesta on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:45:37 AM EST

to fight a rear action guard on the Kerry states. NH is looking soft. PA, MN, even surpisingly Maine are not locks. The "Palin Effect" might be highly localized but real.


Obama can lose Ohio and Florida (none / 0) (#37)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:03:06 AM EST

and still win, according to a handful of scenarios.

That is good.

Also, Obama is ahead (in the EV) of where Kerry was at this time in 2004. Also good.

If Obama can close the gap on the impression that McCain will make a better commander in Chielf of the miitary, he will have this thing wrapped up.


Yep, the EC counts have not budged (none / 0) (#47)
by Cream City on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:19:22 AM EST

for weeks on most sites, despite all these ups and downs and ins and outs -- and outliers. So if it's solid red or solid blue states just getting more solid, so what?


hm (none / 0) (#12)
by connecticut yankee on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:05:36 AM EST

Just one poll but fun to see.

Obama has been sliding in Gallup for a couple of days, down to a 3 point lead from 6 on the weekend. CNN's poll of polls has him up 3 as well.

MSNBC has Obama behind by 3 in VA.

McCain's campaign manager's relations with FMac might sting a little. It's getting lots of coverage today.

Is it the fabled McCain weekend bounce in (none / 0) (#14)
by JoeA on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 08:18:24 AM EST

the trackers? I've read it hypothesised that he seems to do better in the weekend polling.


: weekends=stock markets are closed. (none / 0) (#40)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:04:19 AM EST

It's the economy, stupid (none / 0) (#19)
by andgarden on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 09:02:57 AM EST

but Obama is not ahead by 9.

: Maybe...he will be???? (none / 0) (#39)
by coigue on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:03:53 AM EST

Outlier I am sure (none / 0) (#36)
by TheRizzo on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:01:26 AM EST

But if its anywhere near true and backed up by other polls this week, then all he has to do is get by the debate Friday unscathed, and pretty much its a lock on the election barring a major october surprise.

: CNN (none / 0) (#41)
by Socraticsilence on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:07:31 AM EST

Has Obama at 51, I just think WaPO may be off on McCain's support.

This should be the coup de grace (none / 0) (#38)
by Socraticsilence on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:03:43 AM EST

Seriously, this should put the old man out to pasture if covered, its a bald faced lie about something that will piss Americans off.

Heh (none / 0) (#49)
by Steve M on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 10:58:05 AM EST

50-50 is not a wash. Given the multiplicity of issues out there, the fact that half of voters agree on ANY single issue as the most important one is noteworthy.

Let's compare the 2004 exit polls on the "most important issue" question: moral values 22%, economy/jobs 20%, terrorism 19%, Iraq 15%, health care 8%, taxes 5%, education 4%.

Also consider that people who cited the economy as their top issue voted for Kerry over Bush by a margin of more than 4 to 1. And it's not like Kerry had some Clintonesque ability to feel your pain on the economy. That's the Democratic brand at work.

If a lot more people feel strongly about the economy this year than they did in 2004, that makes a pretty huge difference.

Cry Wolf (none / 0) (#54)
by Loftlore on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 02:56:10 PM EST

How long will the Bush administration be allowed to cry wolf before people understand that the Bush administration is the wolf!?

Heh (none / 0) (#55)
by Steve M on Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 03:04:29 PM EST

You really don't see the difference if 50% of the people cite the economy as the most important issue, and the other 50% are divided up among 6 or 7 different issues?

To you, that says not that the economy is the biggest concern of the electorate, but that it's 50/50 between the economy and "not the economy"?

I think BTD was right about you. I'm going to refrain from any further piling on as you don't seem able to make a coherent point.