Barack Obama 46
John McCain 44
It's shaping up to be another tight contest in Florida, but based on much greater Hispanic support than John Kerry saw in 2004, Barack Obama has the early lead.
George W. Bush won Hispanic voters in the state 56-44 last time, but this survey shows Obama leading among them 51-37.
Obama is also starting to pull the party together in the state. PPP's last Florida poll, taken in March, showed Obama trailing 50-39 while receiving the votes of just 60% of self identified Democrats. He now leads 74-16 with folks in his own party, a level of support relatively similar to John McCain's 77-18 edge with Republicans. Obama is currently taking independent voters in the state, 45-33.
Obama is winning every age group except voters over 65, where McCain's considerable 52-34 advantage allows him to keep the race competitive overall.
Full results here.
Very interesting poll. Two things that surprise me. First is that you have Obama leading among men by 6 and trailing among women by 2. Typically this would be reversed. If the figures reflect reality, this would be very good news for Obama who probably needs a few visits to FL by Hillary to help bring those disenchanted women voters back into the fold.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the party ID is 42/42. I have no feel for whether that marks a big change from 2004 but given that your Ohio poll gave the Dems a big lead in terms of party ID, I was surprised not to see the same here. Still, I'd rather you were conservative.
It will be fascinating to see whether the divide that currently exists on FL polling between Quinnipiac and you on one side and Rasmussen on the other persists. We need a Survey USA poll to act as a tie breaker!
A SUSA poll wouldn´t help, because their results, and their PArty-ID crosstabs fluctuate wildly every time they poll a state. The VP-matchups they are polling now, are mediocre for Democrats (OH party-ID tied), while the last time it was far too good for Obama (VA +7, Party-ID OH +22 or so).
ReplyDeleteThey could poll Florida now and find a McCain+10, and next month they could do it again and find Obama +5, while all other pollsters don´t show any movement.
Strategic Vision's new Florida pol has McCain ahead by 6%.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this PPP poll so far off from everyone else?
Anonymous Commenter,
ReplyDeletePPP is right in the median.
Quinnipiac and ARG show Obama winning by more, Rasmussen and Strategic Vision show McCain winning.
So the premise of your question is not correct.
Mr Jensen, I think you are stretching a bit to include ARG and Quinnipiac to claim you are at the "median". Both those polls are more than two weeks old.
ReplyDeleteThe polls (SV and Rasmussen) done at the same time as your poll show McCain ahead by 6% and 7% while you claim Obama is ahead by 2%. I think you might be outlier here.
.Some reasons I think NC will remain competitive, despite polling:
ReplyDelete1. Eight populous counties control 40% of NC's votes. Obama won all of these in the primary by *wide* margins - and the Democratic primary turnout in these counties dwarfed the Republican turnout, in some cases by a factor of 3- or 4-to-1.
2. In the 2004 election, 14 counties collectively provided 50.54% of NC's votes, while the remaining 86 counties together accounted for the remaining 49.46%. In the top-voting 14 counties, Bush's margin of victory was 2.77%. In the remaining 86 counties, his margin was 9.87%, for a combined statewide win of roughly 12.64%.
Now, in 2008, it is *not at all unreasonable* to think that Obama could win those "top 14 voting counties" by 10 point margins, because those counties - given both current polling and the demographics of those counties. What seems far less likely is that McCain can carry the "remaining 86" by the 10 pts he would need to offset a strong Obama showing in the "top 14" - especially given that Obama has some strength in the Eastern parts of the state which went to Bush in '04. Even in McCain managed Bush's 10%, we're talking about a toss-up, not a 4% lead as current polling suggests. The regional breakdowns in polling have not yet been specific enough for my liking - voting in NC is very much a county-by-county business, and Obama has visited (in some cases multiple times), sent surrogates to, delivered major speeches in, and otherwise intelligently targeted the key locals that he will need to win.
3. NC has "One Stop" Early Voting with on-site registration. The Obama campaign worked this masterfully in the primary, and so has the technique down for the general. Based on their ground game with Early Voting, they came into the NC primary with enough of an early vote advantage that even if he had polled even with Clinton on election day proper, Obama still would have won by 5%. Expect to see this again in November. Obama will come into election day with a huge early vote advantage, and only a massive election day turnout for McCain (which won't materialize) would allow for an upset/close finish.