NYT/CBS poll: "White voters -for the first time - evenly divided between the candidates"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Obama Widens Lead Due To Economy, Voter Backlash Over Negative Ads



Marcus Baram | October 14, 2008 08:07 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/more-voters-trust-obama-t_n_134701.html

With the economy dominating the news, several new polls show Barack Obama widening his lead over John McCain, with voters trusting the Democratic candidate to fix the "serious economic crisis" and firmly rejecting the recent spate of negative personal attacks targeted at Obama.

Most dramatically, Obama has widened his lead to double digits, at 14 points, in a NYT/CBS News poll that shows -for the first time - white voters evenly divided between the candidates.

Two major factors hurting McCain that emerged in the poll: Sarah Palin and the recent spate of negative ads targeting Obama.

Six in 10 of those surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president.

And Palin, who has been leading many of the campaing's personal attacks at fiery rallies in the last two weeks, has seen her favorability rating slipping down to 32 percent and her unfavorability rating climbed 11 points to 41 percent.

Mr. Obama's favorability rating, by contrast, is now at 50 percent - the highest recorded for him thus far by The Times and CBS News.

Though Palin won some praise for her performance in the vice-presidential debate, most viewers felt that Biden won and "not one tracking poll has showed movement toward the McCain-Palin ticket in the days following the debate," reports the Hill.

Other dramatic findings from that poll: Obama is now favored by a majority of men and independents, "two groups that he has been fighting to win over," according to the Times.

The poll presents serious problems for McCain, with only 20 days left in the campaign, since four out of five of each candidate's supporters now say their minds are made up.

Granted, there have been wild swings in the polls throughout the campaign and McCain achieved a Phoenix-like resurrection during the Republican primary when he was considered finished after polling miserably last year.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. This is like Bizarro World.

But in a good way. ;)

[AllentownJake]

2. McCain made up 12 points in the polling before the New Hampshire Primary

However his chief opponent was Mitt Romney who dropped precipitously after losing Iowa and was a terrible candidate prone to gaffes and labled as a liar. I believe it was more Mitt's failure to win Iowa than it was about McCain's ability to win New Hampshire...well that and its one freaking state with a small population that you can spend all your time in and doesn't cost 5 million a day to run a campaign in.

Comparisons to Primary resurections are thus null and void.

[Marsala]

3. Yeah, the primary was more McCain's opponents all self-destructing than him coming back

I remember concluding that by conventional wisdom, of the six of them, none of them should win the nomination. And indeed Giuliani and Thompson imploded and Romney and Huckabee canceled each other out, leaving McCain as the least objectionable candidate by process of elimination.

[AllentownJake]

4. They were in a bad position

Their chosen candidate had his Maccaca moment in 2006.

[EffieBlack]

5. Why can't Obama connect with every single white voter in America?

What's wrong with him?

:sarcasm: