07:15 pm
Is McCain in Trouble?
Here’s the latest Gallup daily tracking poll:
If you are a regular poll-watcher, you can skip to the last paragraph. But if you aren’t regularly watching them, the following might give you some useful background as to how this poll works.
Gallup calls this a daily tracking poll, but in fact, each day is a rolling average of the three most recent days. So today’s results are the three-day average of Wednesday’s Thursday’s and Friday’s poll numbers.
So think about this for a minute. This past Monday and Tuesday, a few days after the Republican National Convention. McCain was ahead 49-44. Since then, his margin has eroded:
- Wednesday: 48-43
- Thursday: 48-44
- Friday: 48-45
- Saturday: 47-45
That means that the big bounce numbers after the convention are no longer part of the three-day average, and every day that passes means one less day in the average that reflects part of the bounce. We’re now down to a two-point difference, which is statistically insignificant, and by tomorrow it could be one point or even tied.
McCain is in the middle of a pretty lousy news cycle right now: Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson didn’t go that well: the lies that both McCain and Palin have been peddling are starting to unravel, the pig-lipstick ploy backfired, the sex ed ad made McCain look really bad, and to ad insult to injury, McCain got hammered on The View, of all places.
After several tough weeks, it looks like the Obama campaign — and the candidate himself — have started to regain its focus, both its own messaging and its targeted attacks on McCain-Palin.
The number to watch is the level of McCain’s support — the margin between the two candidates is much less significant. If it continues to erode over the next few days, it could be a sign of serious problems. Unless his campaign has some heretofore unheard dirt on Obama, or there’s some sort of October surprise, they really don’t have much left in the quiver. The excitement around Palin (beyond the base) is starting to fade, and many folks are beginning to question McCain’s strategy, and even more troubling for him, his integrity. In a matter of about 72 hours we’ve gone from Democratic panic to Republican floundering.
There’s nothing saying that momentum can’t change again, but every day that McCain finds himself on the defensive, it’g going to be harder for him to change the campaign narrative.