My Take: 5 Weeks Out

Make your own map at The Washington Post website.

Daily Tracking Average: 35 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 49.5% (NC)
McCain: 42.5% (-0.3%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/30/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 36 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 49.5% (+0.2%)
McCain: 42.8% (NC)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/29/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 37 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 49.3% (+0.3%)
McCain: 42.8% (-0.4%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/28/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 38 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 49.0% (+0.2%)
McCain: 43.2% (-0.1%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/27/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 39 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 48.8% (+0.4%)
McCain: 43.3% (-1.0%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/26/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 40 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 47.9% (-0.1%)
McCain: 44.3% (+0.1%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/25/2008.

The Flack and the Media

Who will win the debates? Howard Wolfson's verdict:

Friday's debate will have a huge audience and that group of voters will make a judgment based on what they actually see and hear. An even larger group will form their impressions of the debates from the news in the days to come. And even the group that watched the debate will have their judgments tested and challenged by the media's analysis. This means that voters may decide that one candidate won the debate on Friday morning and have concluded by Monday that the other guy was actually victorious. That's why both campaigns will be doing everything they can from the opening bell to win the debate over the debate.

The Cell Phone Black Hole

Some people don't know that cellphone users are not sampled by every pollster. Does this make a difference? Yes, it definitely does.
Max Blumenthal from Pollster.com references a groundbreaking Pew study:

In each of the surveys, there were only small, and not statistically significant, differences between presidential horserace estimates based on the combined interviews and estimates based on the landline surveys only. Yet a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin.

Daily Tracking Average: 42 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 47.9% (-0.1%)
McCain: 44.2% (+0.2%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/23/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 43 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 48.0% (+0.8%)
McCain: 44.0% (-0.2%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/22/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 44 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 47.2% (-0.9%)
McCain: 44.2% (+0.1%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/21/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 45 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 48.1% (+0.8%)
McCain: 44.1% (-0.1%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/20/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 46 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 47.3% (NC)
McCain: 44.2% (+0.1%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 09/19/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 47 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 47.3% (+1.0%)
McCain: 44.1% (-0.2%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 08/18/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 48 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 46.3% (NC)
McCain: 44.3% (-0.8%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 08/17/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 49 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

Obama: 46.3% (+0.3%)
McCain: 45.1% (-0.9%)

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 08/16/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 50 Days To Go

Daily Tracking Average*

McCain: 46.0% (-0.1%)
Obama: 46.0% (NC)

My feeling is that once Obama retakes the lead in these polls, he will ride it all the way to the election.

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 08/15/2008.

Daily Tracking Average: 51 Days To Go

I've been enjoying going back into my archives to see how the last presidential election played out in September and October. I have been particularly interested in some of those old polls. Bush was almost always up in the national polls, though many electoral college estimates had Kerry up all the way to election day.

Anyway, for the purpose of maintaining the record, I am going to start posting Daily tracking poll averages again. I'll use whatever tracking polls I can find, and try to have the averages up by the early evening.

Daily Tracking Average*

McCain: 46.1%
Obama: 46.0%

* Average of Gallup, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and Rasmussen tracking polls released on 08/14/2008.

Lieberman's praise for Obama

This is a bizarre video to watch after what has transpired in the past year. However, what it does say to me is that Lieberman probably would be supporting Obama right now, tepidly--because I believe he is close to McCain personally--if he hadn't lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont.

Palin was vetted...by Google?

From the L.A. Times:

One Republican strategist with close ties to the campaign described the candidate's closest supporters as "keeping their fingers crossed" in hopes that additional information does not force McCain to revisit the decision. According to this Republican, who would discuss internal campaign strategizing only on condition of anonymity, the McCain team used little more than a Google Internet search as part of a rushed effort to review Palin's potential pitfalls. Just over a week ago, Palin was not on McCain's short list of potential running mates, the Republican said.

This is no longer funny. It has quickly shifted to terrifying. This woman does not belong anywhere near the White House, and the fact that McCain is so glib about his VP pick means that he shouldn't be anywhere near it either.