For quite some time, pollsters have been suggesting that the 3-5% lead Barack Obama has been holding above John McCain in the Gallup and Rasmussen daily polls is tenuous, because neither candidate has polled above 50%, and thus neither have acheived a simple majority among voters polled.
Until today:
Any kind of polls should be taken with a massive grain of salt, and especially daily tracking polls. But this isn’t just the highest Obama has polled yet in 2008 — as I said, he’s broken the 50% barrier, which is perhaps the only statistically significant milestone someone can reach in a head-to-head poll. McCain, for his part, exhibits a more telling story with his ratings, as he hasn’t been able to poll above 45%.
Here are the hard numbers:
Gallup:
Obama - 50%
McCain - 42%
Rasmussen:
Obama - 51%
McCain - 45%
Undecideds are apparently the X-factor, as Obama is gaining support from their category while McCain is holding strong at around 42%. I’m not sure if this is pure convention bounce, or if dissatisfaction with McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP is pushing undecideds into the Obama column. It seems to me that the latter is more likely. We’ll see if it lasts or if Obama falls back down.
Convention bounces don’t often last — but unpopular VP choices last forever.
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