new Quad-City Times and Lee Enterprises poll of Iowa voters shows Democrat Barack Obama holding a commanding lead in the state with a little more than six weeks to go before
Election Day.
In a survey of 600 likely voters who vote regularly in state elections, 53 percent said they would support Obama, and 39 percent said they would support Republican John McCain.
A total of 3 percent in the poll said they would support someone else, and another
5 percent were undecided.
Obama led among both male and female voters and all age groups as well as with independent voters. Of the independents polled,
55 percent support Obama and 37 percent support McCain.
The poll was conducted Sept. 15-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Pollster Del Ali, whose Maryland-based firm Research 2000 conducted the survey, attributed some of Obama’s support to the time he spent in the state ahead
of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in January. Obama won the Democratic caucuses in a record turnout.
“This is the state that started it all for Obama. He’s very popular here,” Ali said.
In a statement, Obama’s Iowa director Jackie Norris said the campaign has seen momentum as the economy and a “need for change in Washington” become a larger focus in the election.
“Regardless of what the polls say, we know the McCain campaign is capable of harsh, false attacks which can distract from the important issues, which is why we are taking absolutely nothing for granted,” Norris said.
The numbers in the poll conducted by Research 2000 differed from a recent Big Ten Battleground Poll that showed the race in Iowa as a toss-up, but were similar to a recent Iowa Poll by the Des Moines Register that showed Obama with a 12-point lead.
Republican Doug Gross, who is co-chairing the party’s get-out-the-vote efforts in Iowa, said internal polls are showing a tight race in the state between McCain and Obama.
“Our view is that Iowa’s still very much in play and will continue to be in play and is neck and neck,” Gross said.
McCain’s Iowa spokeswoman, Wendy Riemann, said the campaign considers Iowa a battleground state.
“We’re committed to winning Iowa, and we will be fighting to win Iowa through Nov. 4,” she said.
McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, which swung the spotlight back to the GOP candidate, didn’t make a large share of voters more likely to support McCain, the Research 2000 survey showed.
Of those polled, 61 percent said the Palin pick had no effect on their decision, and 22 percent said it made them more likely to vote for McCain.
Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University, said Palin is energizing the base of GOP voters who were already planning to vote for McCain or likely to stay home on Election Day.
“In that sense, it was an effective choice for McCain,” said Goldford, who doesn’t believe the Palin selection has attracted independent voters.
Bob Timmons, 75, of rural Blue Grass in eastern Iowa, is a Republican and does not always vote for GOP candidates. But he supported McCain in the presidential caucuses and is still behind him.
Timmons, a Korean War veteran, feels he can trust fellow veteran McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
“You (don’t) spend five-and-a-half years in a prison like he did without having an abnormal amount of guts and character and everything else,” Timmons said.
He also thinks McCain would appoint justices to the Supreme Court that wouldn’t try to rewrite the Constitution.
Jim Conlin, a 68-year-old real estate agent and Republican from Cascade, said he was voting “none of the above” until McCain brought Palin onto the ticket.
“She is conservative. She’s pro-life. She’s taken on the bigwigs and brought about reform,” said Conlin, who’s now squarely behind the McCain-Palin ticket.
Far and away, poll respondents picked the economy and jobs as the single most important issue affecting their decision. A total of 36 percent said it was their top concern, followed by the Iraq war and reducing health-care costs, which both polled at 12 percent.
Both McCain and Obama have focused on the turmoil on Wall Street on the campaign trail in recent days, with McCain calling for the firing of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox.
The poll shows McCain still has inroads to make with Iowa voters. Both his favorable and unfavorable rating sat at 47 percent in the poll.
Goldford thinks McCain’s negative TV ads are a factor in those ratings.
“I think that he’s run just this barrage of negative ads here in Iowa,” Goldford said.
In contrast, Obama scored a favorable rating from 58 percent of voters and a 31 percent unfavorable rating.
Darlene Jackson, an 80-year-old homemaker from rural Weldon in southern Iowa, originally supported Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses but now is behind Obama.
“I just like his message; I like everything he says,” she said. “I think he’s very much on the ball.”
Jackson, a Democrat, said the choice of Palin made her even less likely to vote for the McCain ticket.
“I don’t think she could be president if she had to be,” Jackson said. “I don’t think she knows enough.”
The addition of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden to Obama’s ticket had even less of an impact with poll respondents. A total of 77 percent said Biden had no effect on their decision, and just 17 percent said they were more likely to vote for the ticket with Biden on it.
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/09/21/news/local/doc48d5d7d0b32a5478622581.txt
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