WTF? McCain AHEAD of Obama?

[dtotire]

Gains for McCain in latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll



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.



http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/07/gains-for-mccai.html

[malaise]

1. Gallop Obama 48

McBush 40.

[Alter Ego]

2. "Likely" voters is a classic GOP tactic.

They undersample younger folks and oversample older ones.

[blue52power]

7. Exactly likely vs. registered

It is registered voters that matter. I'm more concerned and interested in the swing states than national polls anyway.

Ohio, Penn, Ky, Mich, Missouri etc

[DarthDem]

3. Oh, Please

This USA Today-sponsored poll is ALWAYS an outlier, and ALWAYS goes against the conventional wisdom at the time. Ignore. Do not be concerned. The two major tracking polls and all the state polls are not wrong. Nothing to see here.

[Captain Angry]

4. If they don't repeat that, true or not, it will be harder to manipulate the result later.

If Obama wins by what many believe he'll win by, it would take MASSIVE manipulation to shift the final result.

If the news reports that it isn't even close, then they have nothing to talk about and would probably be called out for "crowning the next President" or being too supportive. How reporting actual numbers is biased is beyond me though.

[0rganism]

5. hinging on the definition of "likely" voter

Might be worth checking to see if they changed the sampling weights in the last month. If they are using the same methods, there probably has been some shift toward McCain among elderly voters.

Anyway, don't fret about it. National polls are far less representational in terms of electoral success than state-focused polls. The last few show Obama with leads in all the states Kerry won in 2004 plus 6 that went for bush.

[pdxmom]

6. Geez, could they have set their poll up to favor McSame any more?

Small sampling, limited to "likely" voters (whatever the hell that is) and done on a summer weekend.

How do they think they have any credibility?

[safeinOhio]

8. Great time to place a bet

I'd love to take some of their money.

[Jim__]

9. Gallup is contradicting itself.

The USA-Today/Gallup poll - likely voters 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.


Same dates, Gallup daily Tracking poll:
The general-election results are based on combined data from July 25-27, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,674 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points. Obama 48 McCain 40 here

[Puzzler]

10. Which golf and country clubs did they poll?

.

[RB TexLa]

11. More people in this country are like Jim Adkisson then some would like to believe.

[FatherTime1408]

12. Do any of these polls really mean anything?

Who's taking these things anyway? No way I'm taking a call from a pollster.

[cliss]

13. This is how they steal elections.

The Vote Riggers have figured out that they need to keep an "even horse race", right from the beginning. There will be some variations, some movement.

Mc Cain might even fall below for a while. But towards the end, their candidate will win by a VERY SMALL MARGIN. Maybe a few thousand votes, or a 1 % margin.

That's how they do it.:smoke:

[Lex]

14. " Among registered voters, McCain still trails Obama . . . "

Well, that's good news.

"Gallup editor Frank Newport tells Jill that "registered voters are much more important at the moment,"