TIMES/BLOOMBERG POLL
Obama holds 12-point lead over McCain, poll finds
Laura Rauch / Getty Images, LM Otero / Associated Press
According to a Times/Bloomberg Poll, 49% of registered voters favor Sen. Barack Obama while 37% support Sen. John McCain.
A Times/Bloomberg Poll says that in a two-man contest, 49% of respondents favor Barack Obama, while 37% support John McCain. With Ralph Nader and Bob Barr added to the mix, Obama holds 15-point edge.
By Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
2:00 PM PDT, June 24, 2008
WASHINGTON -- -- Buoyed by enthusiasm among Democrats and public concern over the economy, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has captured a sizable lead over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at the opening of the general election campaign for president, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll has found.
In a two-man race between the major party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll conducted last weekend.
On a four-man ballot including independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by an even larger margin, 48% to 33%.
Obama's advantage, bigger in this poll than in most other national surveys, appears to stem in large part from his positions on domestic issues. Both Democrats and independent voters say Obama would do a better job than McCain at handling the nation's economic problems, the public's top concern.
In contrast, many voters give McCain credit as the more experienced candidate and the one best equipped to protect the nation against terrorism -- but they rank those concerns below their worries about the economy.
Moreover, McCain suffers from a pronounced "enthusiasm gap," especially among the conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters who describe themselves as conservative, only 58% say they will vote for McCain; 15% say they will vote for Obama, 14% say they will vote for someone else, and 13% say they are undecided.
By contrast, 79% of voters who describe themselves as liberal say they plan to vote for Obama.
Even among voters who say they do plan to vote for McCain, more than half say they are "not enthusiastic" about their chosen candidate; only 45% say they are enthusiastic. By contrast, 81% of Obama voters say they are enthusiastic, and almost half call themselves "very enthusiastic," a level of zeal that only 13% of McCain's supporters display.
"McCain is not capturing the full extent of the conservative base the way President Bush did in 2000 and 2004," said Susan Pinkus, director of the Times Poll. "Among conservatives, evangelicals and voters who identify themselves as part of the religious right, he is polling less than 60%.
"Meanwhile, Obama is doing well among a broad range of voters," she said. "He's running ahead among women, black voters and other minorities. He's running roughly even among white voters and independents."
Among white voters, Obama and McCain are dead even at 39% each, the poll found. Earlier this year, when Obama ran behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) among white voters in some primary elections, analysts questioned whether the African American senator could win white voters in the general election.
But the great majority of Clinton voters have transferred their allegiance to Obama, the poll found. Only 11% of Clinton voters have defected to McCain.
Nader, a consumer advocate who ran as the candidate of the Green Party in 2000 and as an independent in 2004, and Barr, a former Georgia congressman, both appear to siphon more votes from McCain than they do from Obama. When Nader and Barr are added to the ballot, they draw most of their support from voters who said they would otherwise vote for the Republican.
Obama's strong showing also stems from a broader trend among voters of support for Democratic candidates and Democratic positions after almost eight years of an increasingly unpopular Republican administration.
In this national poll's random sample of voters, 39% identified themselves as Democrats, 22% as Republicans, and 27% as independents. In a similar poll a year ago, 33% identified themselves as Democrats, 28% as Republicans, and 30% as independents.
The survey found public approval of President Bush's job performance at a new low for the Times/Bloomberg Poll: only 23% approved of the job Bush is doing, and 73% disapproved.
A bare majority of 51% of voters said they have a "positive feeling" about the Democratic Party; only 29% said they have a positive feeling about the Republican Party.
"It's a Democratic year," Pinkus said. "This election is the Democrats' to lose."
The Times/Bloomberg Poll, conducted under Pinkus' supervision, interviewed 1,115 registered voters across the nation June 19-23. The poll's margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points. |
