CBS poll: Obama leads by five after trailing by two post-convention

posted at 6:25 pm on September 17, 2008 by Allahpundit
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That’s among registereds. Among likely voters, he … leads by the same margin, a bad result given that Maverick’s typically fared much better with that group. Maybe those young Obamites are tuning in and turning out after all?

Exercise caution until we have details about the sample, as some of these swings are eye-poppingly dramatic. Even so, it’s safe to say the bounce is indeed gone:

Obama’s advantage can be traced in part to independents, who favored Obama in late August, swung to McCain just after the Republican convention, and have now returned to Obama. Obama now leads McCain among independents 46 percent to 41 percent.

Obama now also leads McCain among women, a group that favored McCain by five points in polling taken just after the Republican convention, where Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became the second woman ever to be nominated to a major party ticket.

Obama leads McCain 54 percent to 38 percent among all women. He holds a two point edge among white women, a 21 percentage point swing in Obama’s direction from one week ago.

There were enormous swings among women towards McCain in other polls last week. If these numbers are right and the pendulum’s swung back, it probably means they were drawn to Palin, gave her a look, and … didn’t like what they saw. In fact, in the CBS poll her favorables among women have dropped 11 points in a week; among Hillary voters she splits 20/48, even though 25 percent of Clintonites say they’re voting for McCain. She’s still +10 in favorables overall — but as of last week she was +22, which I guess means that Hotline poll I linked yesterday wasn’t such an outlier after all.

I’m seeing some grumbling about her answers to Hannity in the excerpt thread in Headlines, too. Exit question: Is Palinmania over?

Update: Just as I’m ready to publish this, I see they’ve posted the complete PDF. Back in a few with updates as warranted, but a quick review of the sample of registered voters weighted by party reveals a possible partial explanation for the swing. In last week’s poll, the Dem/GOP/Ind breakdown was 36.8/30.6/32.5. Today’s sample is 40.6/31.6/27.8. They’ve added more Democrats at the expense of independents — although given the trend among the latter group back towards Obama, the effect may be less dramatic than we think/hope.

Update: Biden’s net favorables are actually higher among independents than Palin’s are now, +22 to +14. On the question of whether she’s prepared to be VP, among indies she’s net -2 and among all voters -10. As for whether she’s prepared to step in for McCain as president or whether voters would be “concerned,” she’s net -28 among indies and -29 overall. Plus, there’s this. Note the trend:

Again, the sample gap is unusually wide so don’t take the overall numbers too much to heart. The indie numbers are more important.

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