According to Gallup:
Presidents who retain majority job approval from Americans at the time of midterm elections are much less likely to see their party suffer heavy seat losses than are those with sub-50% approval ratings. Since 1946, when presidents are above 50% approval, their party loses an average of 14 seats in the U.S. House in the midterm elections, compared with an average loss of 36 seats when presidents are below that mark. … The clear implication is that the Democrats are vulnerable to losing a significant number of House seats this fall with Barack Obama’s approval rating averaging 45% during the last two full weeks of Gallup Daily tracking. The Republicans would need to gain 40 House seats to retake majority control.
It’s worth bearing in mind that many other political metrics — from voter intensity to the generic congressional vote to Obama’s massive loss of support among Independents to GOP dominance on the issues — are more problematic than the president’s approval rating. But as Gallup points out, that’s problematic enough.
the debates will be the only remaining opportunity for big (relatively speaking) swings in momentum.
Unless, of course, there is some other intervening currently unforseen event such as a huge gaffe by one of the four in the spotlight, or a terrorist attack or another 85 billion dollar bailout of a heretofore private company.
Jesus! Again, enough about the polls. Every other thread has something on it about this. What does a 450-point drop have to do with anything, seriously? When the markets go up 450 points, will that benefit McCain? Why? I don’t know why, but I just don’t think voters are hooked up a Bloomberg terminal spitting out the quotes on our financial institutions.
The Palin factor made the RNC bump a bit bigger but everyone knew it would come down some… how far is the question.
A terrorist attack helps McCain… another company going under helps Obama…
Not the most savory ways to gain in the polls, but both scenarios are completely out of the hands of the candidates obviously.
“I just don’t think voters are hooked up a Bloomberg terminal spitting out the quotes on our financial institutions.”
I would suppose at least ONE investor would be a voter. But, I could be wrong.
But polls actually show slightly more people trust McCain on the economy than Obama. So, I don’t think it’s the market turmoil that’s doing it. Honestly, I have a lot of trouble believing the national polls because the state polls have been improving steadily for McCain so it’s hard to believe that the national polls wouldn’t be going in the same direction.
i wonderhow much of this is the result of the incessant MSM cant that McCain is a psychopathic liar.
The right side put out as many “obama camp has derailed” stories it could muster during the Palin bump to try and sustain it.. but that is over now barring another unexpected event.
The damage of having Palin in a spot that can go nowhere but down and outshining the top of the ticket, is done.
It is now Team Obama vs Team Palin and every time complicated financial matters or forign affairs dominates the news its going to hurt team Palin. Palin needs the issues to be on social ones to have a chance. A personality contest would be her best forum.
“the debates will be the only remaining opportunity for big (relatively speaking) swings in momentum.”
The first debate seems tailor-made for McCain: It’s entirely about foreign policy, and the candidates wil be siting down, so Obama won’t benefit from his superior height.
Campaign coverage has become very much like stock market reporting (in all the market’s phases). That is,
1. Everyone has a plausible, if not correct, explanation for what happened, after the fact.
2. Hardly anyone—maybe no one— can explain what will happen, in advance, based on a coherent theory. Occasionally, someone guesses right or has a hot streak. That good guesser becomes a temporary guru.
3. Separating the signal from the noise in any event is challenging!
Fresh Air has hit on something. The markets are correcting and will rebound. The big news to come out of this is the connection between The A/O and his economic advisors who are hip-deep in this mess–their massive payouts and corrupt management. On another topic: the hacking of Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account is so egregious that it will backfire (once again) on The A/O’s campaign. The dirty tricks employed by Democrats and their deranged supporters are reprehensible and ordinary people (not paying $28,000 to hear BS from the A/O) are repulsed. Furthermore, ordinary folks despise the MSM for their collusion in these despicable attacks.
“But polls actually show slightly more people trust McCain on the economy than Obama. ”
No, that’s not true, there may be some individual poll that shows that, but in most polls Obama retains an edge on the economy, tho that edge has gotten smaller.
The small leap-frogs in the national polls are not an indication of where the race is.
The state polls are where you need to be watching. These polls show movement toward McCain in the past few weeks. Red states are turning redder, blue states are turning less blue and some blue states are turning to toss-up. I am unsure if or when the state polls will reverse. Obama needs a game changer. At this point the economy does not seem to be working out to well for him, so I don’t think it will be the game changer he needs.
My hunch–strongly expressed here–has been confirmed.
We had a rare three or four day window where Obama’s head was spinning. The whole country was listening to what McCain would say next. All eyes were on him. We had a direct line. What did we do?
We dithered and gloated. McCain should’ve ridiculed the lipstick controversy and hogged all the attention to talk about the economy.
For me it was also a real test of the punditry: Who had the good sense to see this? Who was simply in favor more mindless piling on? I’m afraid that Contentions came out very poorly on this test.
Bob Miller,
Fantastic post.
Nonsense, ordi, the state polls follow the national polls ultimately. If Obama goes back on track with his one to five pre-conventions lead, the state polls will follow. And, absent a foreign crisis, the debates will be McCain’s only chance to get ahead. Absent the Bradley Effect, he (McCain) may be in the position John Kerry was four years ago.
Obviously the big impact here is the business news, it correlates with Obama’s rise. The lipstick thing was too overtly cynical a ploy, however. Its biggest impact probably was persuading the media to attack McCain more strenuously.
So many factors potentially influential on the polling data recently have occurred that I can’t see how anyone can untangle possible causal links (and the polls the last few days display such conflicting results that to me they’re all but incoherent). I fully admit that I dwell obsessively on the polls, but until following the first debate I hereby swear to check them only once a day. I suspect my pledge is one that many others would benefit from taking (and suspect also that, as with most pledges, this one will soon be broken).
Polls began to turn following McCain campaign’s cynical Lipstick outrage.
McCain camp totally overplayed its hand; the transparent absurdity of the charges left them exposed credibility-wise, opening the door for aggressive reporting w/r/t dishonesty on earmarks, on the bridge and on other attack ads.
Obama campaign wisely heeded the many pundits advising that the Governor be left to her own devices; into this already unsupportive media cycle, she released her abysmal interview performance.
At this point, level-headed conservative dissenters began to pile on (Douthat, Frum, Lowry, Krauthammer, Drezner and most recently David Brooks). SNL skit then weighs in. (“And I can see Russia from my house!”)
Then, and only then, finally, the financial market developments, and here we are.
Sorry, guys, but McCain should have stayed serious and picked Romney.
I’m not so sure that Obama’s recent upswing is solely related to Wall Street. The past week and a half have belonged to Obama. You can feel it. The attacks on Palin have dominated the news and her interview on ABC probably didn’t win her a ton of new fans. Team Obama has seized the narrative the past week or so and the party that does that will always benefit. Team McCain will rebound when it’s able to win a few consecutive news cycles. What’s frustrating is that between McCain’s good history on Fannie/Freddie (as noted by John and David Frum), Obama’s closeness to Fannie/Freddie/Lehman (in terms of campaign contributions) and Obama’s Hollywood fundraiser, that Team McCain hasn’t been able to seize the narrative. The key for Team McCain is to ride out this surge of Obama momentum without falling behind too much.
Hey Team McCain:
Unleash the distaff side of your ticket. Let her put her shoulder to the news for two days.
Let ‘er rip.
Okay, I’m not going to repeat my recent post comments for everyone to relax. As Jon says, Obama has maintained a steady, albeit shrinking, lead against McCain on the handling of the economy questions. With an economic crisis in front of us, it makes perfect sense that Obama’s numbers will reflect this. McCain, as some have mentioned above, has to sharpen his message. I like some of his recent ads, but, again, they could be sharper. By sharper I mean contrast his policies with Obama’s: taxes, challenging elites, etc. He should also go after the do-nothing Democratic Congress and tie it to Obama. These he can accomplish during the debates as well. The most important point is that he should not become timid!! He should not fear what the MSM will say. Short of publically conceding the election to Obama, the MSM will never give him a positive moment.
Pedant von Knowitall
Double nonsense! Yes the state polls follow the national ones. However, a one or two point bump for Obama does not put him in the lead – it makes it closer. One DAYS polling does not make a come back. How is Obama doing in PA, MN, WI? Obama is up slightly in these states or is tied. Look at FL, OH, VA. These are either now out of Obama’s reach or are trending that way.
Please Note the new poll out in VA today.
McCain with the support of 48 percent of state voters, compared with 39 percent for Obama.
Democrat Mark Warner is maintaining a huge advantage, 54 percent to 30 percent, over Republican Jim Gilmore in the state’s U.S. Senate contest.
Which means – 30% of people voting for Warner do not plan to vote for Obama.
I guess that 1 or 2 point bump is not working out so well for Obama!
With these 3 added to McCain’s EV total he is at 260 – 10 away for the magical 270. Like I said, a one or two point bump for Obama does not put him in the lead. I am not saying it can not change but other than the debates there is no game changer out there for Obama.
If you think the changer is the economy you are wrong.
Just ask Harry Reid – This is what he said about the current turmoil on Wall Street:
“No one knows what to do. We are in new territory here. This is a different game. We’re not here playing soccer, basketball or football, this is a new game and we’re going to have to figure out how to do it.”
Keep your blinders on if you want but don’t come crying on Nov 5th when McCain is the President Elect!!!
Kerry “led” by 2 in the Gallup poll (RV) through election day. I imagine their more precise likely voter model would still show a slight lead for McCain (as Rasmussen’s does).
Romney would be attacked as the corporate fatcat with five houses right now. Are you kidding me?
Romney would’ve been a disaster.
He got his clock cleaned in Mass. with a brilliant series of ads consisting of people who were jobless because of his takeovers.
It would be unrelenting now.
Shudder.
Admittedly, I’m personally not too thrilled with Palin’s answer that Wall Street “corruption” is to blame for all this. Melissa Bachman, a Minnesota GOP freshman representative, gave a much more thoughtful answer on this matter. McCain and Palin are really beating the populist, Lou Dobbs drum. Is this good politics? I don’t know, but it doesn’t strike me as good economics.
I was under the impression that Bush led slightly most of the time in the Gallup track four years ago?
Take it from this Mass. taxpayer, Romney would’ve been a disaster. How did his convention speech compare with Palin’s?
The lesson of last week is that merely dominating the airwaves and knocking Obama off-message– as Lipstickgate surely did– isn’t enough without content attractive to voters, without advancing the message in a serious way. Could the contrast between last week’s manufactured sexist outrage, and this week’s crisis be any greater? It’s helped put McCain on the defensive. He sounds like he’s behind.
One senses that the post-election period has been a lost opportunity. If McCain’s trailing at debate time, Obama has a chance to effectively put him away.
Pedant: Bush led consistently in the likely voter estimate.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110272/Registered-Voters-vs-Likely-Voters.aspx
Well, that’s good. So where are the Gallip likely voter tracks? Do they only appear at the end?
I wish too McCain had tired to make some substantive points last week, instead of just giving us lipstick nonsense, but the hard fall came right with the Wall Street news, and I’m not sure anything would have prevented that.
Bad economic news helps the Democrats, because in the mind of the indie voter that reflexively fuels Obama’s “change” message. McCain can try to point out the Dem role in all this, but will have trouble getting that message through the media “ground noise and static.” Also we are no longing about Georgia and energy and Sarah Palin’s cute family, which all played to McCain’s strong suits.
Good question, Pedant, since in ’04 the difference was quite meaningful, with Kerry leading by 2 pts. going into election day among registered voters (the polls we’re now seeing), and Bush leading by the same margin among likely voters. The difference that Gallup references in their explanation is astounding (at that stage, a 10 pt. lead). Gives me a bit of hope also that Gallup’s estimation of likely voters seems to have been close. Anyone have an explanation as to why both results aren’t made public?
“I wonder how much of this is the result of the incessant MSM cant that McCain is a psychopathic liar.”
Probably a fair amount, jfeder. The polls go up, they go down. Most important as far as I’m concerned is that McCain proved, over the past two weeks, that he can take a lead in this race. My fear was that he had never been ahead and thus might not be capable of winning the race at the end.
McCain’s had a bad week. His campaign says one dumb thing after another; the market stumbles badly; the media, panicked over his ascent, treats him unfairly. These things are getting priced in now. The storyline changes entirely a week from Friday – debates begin.
I think McCain’s problems started over the weekend. The MSM got very nasty and McCain seemed to be AWOL to those attacks. Second, I feel the conservative media misreads the way Palin came across in the unfair ABC interview. I think the Independents judged her harshly. It was not exactly a fair interview, but that is life. She should have prepared more and prepared better.
Third, Carly Fiorina and that other talking head made some boneheaded, unexcusable comments that put McCain in a bad light in the middle of a bad week!
Finally, the AIG disaster and the stock market drop have genuinely hurt McCain and hurt him deeply.
In conclusion, Obama’s lead will only grow this week, maybe up to 8-10 points and you will then see the state polls follow. I see this as the beginning of the end of the McCain campaign. Obama will get such a head of steam that even the debates will not matter. We will look back at early September as the Palin mirage time or a political Indian summer that did not last.
It pains me to say this, but I think McCain lost the election this week. The unqualified and dangerous next socialist president will be Obama. God help us all.
Good, lively discussion points on both sides of this debate, but I don’t know where this received conventional wisdom comes from that state polls follow national polls. The Presidential election is not a national popularity contest (or have we forgotten President Gore?) but a combination of 50 state polls, many of the most important of which have been tending toward McCain. It’s close, McCain took some shots this week, but it’s still unclear whether Obama is getting that much independent support from the economic situation. I don’t think it’s time for either a euphoric or apocalyptic mindset. Let things play out a little — there’s plenty of time for panic.