Pollster.com

the trend is McCains friend. I guess the McCain = Bush3 thing isnt working

queue the music...

"In a dangerous world filled with terrorists, dictators, and evil empires...is country under economic disaster...the people must choose a new leader..."

"Maverick versus Liberal"

Coming to the a theater near you...

@marctx

Only thing is McCain is not a maverick. If this was 2000 he would be, but not today.

to marctx:

"In a paranoid country filled with scared people, smearattackers and ideologists... the facts are ignored ... the people are seeking a big (old) brother to walk down the path the leader before him has chosen"

"Warmonger vs. progress"

coming to the theater near you...

congratulations from Europe for that inspired choice, America! You'll get what you deserve.

Let's face it, Obama/Axelrod have run a terrible GE campaign with one blunder after another -- the unnecessary reversals on key positions, the European rock star tour (he should have quit while he was ahead, after visiting Afghanistan and Iraq); booking the stadium for 75,000 in Denver which will make him look ludicrous, particularly after the Republican "celebrity" ads; the ill-timed vacation; "above my pay grade," and on and on and on.

They will have no-one to blame but themselves, but will blame Hillary and racism anyway.

People actually seem to be looking for someone who is a strong leader (McCain 52/Obama 37). Check out War in Iraq (McCain 54/Obama 41).

This is where Obama really lost his advantage:
Reduce gas & energy prices: McCain moved up from 31% to 40% whereas Obama dropped from 50% to 37%.

The following is from the DEMOCRATIC analysis:

"Underneath the more modest movement in the
overall vote from our last poll, however, is a larger shift among independents that is of
particular concern for Obama. In May, Obama led among independents by 14 points;
today, McCain is winning these voters by 10 points....

In conclusion, John McCain is making the presidential race a real contest.
The race will be close, and the trends over the past three months favor McCain
somewhat."

P.S. Very interesting poll and reading both the GOP and Dem analysis is intriguing. Although peppered with political bias, they do agree on the basic statistics.

Before everyone gets too excited, please note the following:
Party ID here is 42D/41R/16I so this particular sample of persons who meet the poll's criteria for being a likely voter, probably errs slightly in McCain's direction to begin with and still gives him only a 1 point lead. Further, the Dem analysis notes that this is a conservative turnout model and a modest increase in youth turnout puts Obama ahead by 2 points. Also, the demo info shows that only 6% of those polled were 18-29 and 29% were 65 or older. Obviously, the subsample results had to be rewieghted from these numbers to get a more accurate demography for the poll inducing more possibility of error, especially for the small subsample of 18-29 year olds which has a much larger margin of error and may have itself overstated McCain's support in that group (I did not see results for age subsamples so am just guessing here).

And when did Bill Maher become so much more intelligent than the average voter? He may be more cynical (or not) but calling Americans stupid is elitist as well as ignorant. But then again he gets paid to have that attitude... and he is not running for political office.

I also note that this poll shows McCain up +10 among independents while LATimes/Bloomberg has Obama up +11 and Quinnipiac has Obama up +6. Some of the difference may be attributed to definition as it appears that this poll puts Independents who lean Dem or GOP into the partisan category and the others may leave them as independents, but I dont think this would account for a difference of 21 and 16 points respectively and so may also be an artifact of the reweighting of the age subsamples in a direction that favors McCain in the poll but is probably not reflected in the actual electorate. So again even here with all this McCain only has a 1 point lead in this poll which is probably just on the McCain side of the standard deviation from the true result which is probably still a slight Obama lead.

The George Washington University Battleground poll is of "likely" voters which is a different mix than that of "registered" voters. That is where your argument should be. (Historically, Republicans are more likely to vote than Democrats.) And this is a "random" survey with a reasonable number of respondents.

Note that this poll is a statistical tie. Gallup uses registered voters only, and yesterdays tracking poll showed Obama 45/McCain 44 (statistical tie). Rasmussen Obama 47-McCain 46 (statistical tie). LA Times/Bloomberg poll registered voters Obama 45/McCain 43 (statistical tie).

But WAIT... look at the just released Reuter/Zogby poll with likely voters: McCain is +5 (Obama 41/McCain 46)... "wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll."

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUKN1948672420080820?sp=true

isnt this the same zogby poll that noone thought was a valid poll when barack was in the lead? so now that mccain is in the lead it is the one poll you hold dear to. funny how you didnt mention the quinnipiac which has 5 point lead for obama and is not a statistical tie.and it is only 2 days old.there is no trend. these polls will go up and down. there is no sure winner in this horse race. obama never had a significant lead to begin witheven during the primaries when gallup was doing the daily poll for both hillary and barak vs mccain. people are reading way too much in these polls. on average barack has very rarily had more than a 5 point lead. every once in awhile he got a little bounce but it never stayed up long. it is possible that there is a trend, but we wont know truly till around october if it holds.