Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 45%. Obama has now enjoyed a modest lead every day for nearly a month.
It is difficult to overstate the stability of this campaign ever since the events on Wall Street brought a new wave of economic anxiety to the fore. Just before Lehman Brothers collapsed and started the Wall Street debacle, McCain held a very slight lead in the polls. Immediately afterwards, the race became more of a referendum on the Bush Administration and Obama moved ahead. The stability of Obama’s advantage in recent weeks suggests that it will be difficult for McCain to change the dynamic before the results are finally set in stone.
For the past eleven days, Obama has been at the 50% or 51% level of support every day in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. During those same eleven days, McCain has been at 45% or 46% every day and the gap between the candidates has stayed between four and six percentage points.
If you go back a couple of weeks further, the results are pretty much the same. It’s now been 27 days since Obama’s support moved below 50% or above 52%. During that period, the number voting for McCain has stayed in the 44% to 46% range and the gap between the candidates has ranged from four to eight percentage points (see trends).
Rasmussen Markets data shows Obama with an 86.0 % chance of winning in November (see market expectations for key states).
Tracking Poll results are released every day at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and a FREE daily e-mail update is available.
Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters have a favorable opinion of Barack Obama while 54% say the same about John McCain. Those figures include 41% with a Very Favorable opinion of Obama and 26% who say the same about McCain (see trends).
Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters say the economy is the top issue of Election 2008 while 19% name national security. Eleven percent (11%) say fiscal issues such as taxes and spending are the highest priority while 10% look primarily to domestic issues such as Social Security and health care. Only 7% name cultural issues as most important.
Polling released yesterday for West Virginia and South Carolina show McCain leading in both. New state polling results were released earlier this week for Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. See a video overview of the latest Fox News/Rasmussen Reports Battleground State polls.
Rasmussen Reports data indicates that Obama currently has the edge in every state won by John Kerry four years ago. However, of the states won by George Bush, McCain is trailing in four and five others are considered a toss-up. As a result, Electoral College projections now show Obama leading 260-163. When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 286-174. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House. |
