The polling trends continue. Rasmussen this monring [1], looks at their most recent polling in the five battleground states, and says:
· McCain is trusted more than Obama in all five states.
· In all five states, McCain is viewed more favorably than Obama.
· Also, in all five states, Sarah Palin draws higher “Very Favorable” ratings than any other candidate.
· In all states except Colorado, McCain enjoys a bigger margin among Republicans than Obama does among Democrats [2]. In Colorado, they are even.
· Economic issues are the top issue in all five states with national security [2] matters a distant second.
· The number who would not be comfortable with Obama as President is higher in every state than the number saying the same about McCain. This is consistent with national polling data showing that McCain voters are more likely than Obama supporters to be primarily voting against the other candidate.
· Obama has the edge among unaffiliated voters in three states, McCain in two. Nationally, unaffiliated voters are fairly evenly divided.
· Pennsylvania has more undecided voters than any other state—seven percent (7%). Most of these are Democrats or unaffiliated voters.
They have the tables and whatnot, of course. They are suggesting, and I concur:
The most significant thing to watch for in the coming week will be to see if McCain’s convention bounce expands or recedes.
Additionally, it will be interesting to see if Obama retains an edge in Colorado which might validate the decision to host his convention in Denver.
Well,on that last question, the Politico is saying [3] NRSC numbers are showing McCain up by two points in Colorado. Maybe he shuld have picked somewhere else to hold the convention. Apparently the Denver thing didn’t make him too popular.
The issue at this point by my read is how much of this is simple campaign induced erosion of Obama’s numbers, and how much of this is simple convention bounce. It’s unquestionable that Obama got far less a bounce than did McCain.
And how much of it is Palin?
Hot Air is reporting [4] a large 20pt swing of White Women toward McCain, for example.