When the new WSJ/NBC poll, along with the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls, all show Barack Obama with a 5%-6% lead over John McCain, it is obvious where the race stood after Hillary Clinton suspended her primary campaign. Yet the coverage of the WSJ and NBC offer differing pictures of the same poll.
NBC reported:
Obama leads McCain among registered voters, 47 to 41 percent, which is outside the poll’s margin of error. In the previous NBC/Journal survey, released in late April, Obama was ahead by three points, 46-43 percent.
“The poll clearly shows a post-primary bump for Barack Obama,†says Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart.
In contrast, the Wall Street Journal led this way:
Barack Obama begins his presidential race against John McCain with a lead in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, but not so great an edge as might be expected, given the gale-force political headwinds against Sen. McCain’s Republican Party.
Sen. Obama leads Sen. McCain by 47% to 41%, a spread that is twice the edge he had in the previous poll, in late April. Still, that lead is significantly smaller than the Democratic Party’s 16-point advantage, 51% to 35%, when voters are asked, without candidates’ names, which party they want to win the White House.
Obama’s post-primary bump is exceedingly modest. As NBC itself notes, its April poll had Obama ahead by 46-43. The new poll shows an Obama lead beyond the margin of error, but within the margin of error from the April numbers.  The full report shows that since March, the four WSJ/NBC polls have McCain in a range from 41-44, and Obama in a range from 44 to 47. Thus, the time series for this poll suggests a persistent, but small Obama lead over the past three months.
The Gallup tracking poll for this same period — which has more than four observations — shows McCain and Obama trading a generally insignificant lead throughout. Obama looks to have received a 6-7 point bump after Clinton suspended her campaign, but note that Gallup switched from a five-day rolling average to a three-day average beginning June 9, which allowed people to see that post-Clinton bump sooner, but with numbers that are not exactly comparable to (and more volatile than) the prior Gallup numbers.
Comparing the internals, what will leap out at most is that Obama leads McCain with women by a 52-33 margin in the WSJ/NBC poll. The Gallup numbers are slightly closer, with Obama leading 51-38. For comparison, in 2004, Kerry beat Bush among women by only three points, while Gore won women by eight points. Maverick has his work cut out for him with women.
The WSJ/NBC poll has McCain winning men by eight points, while Gallup had the lead at an insignificant two points. Bush won men by 11 points in 2004 and 9 points in 2000. So McCain likely lags a little even with men.
Note that the gap in these gender numbers may be explained by the number of undecideds in each poll; WSJ/NBC captures only 85% of women, whie Gallup captures 89%. Indeed, those goshdarn fickle wimmen may account for much of the volatility in the recent polls. Gallup had Obama losing white women to John McCain by 9 points over the period of May 1-17, but that dropped to a three point margin (43-46) for the June 5-9 period. In contrast, NBC reports that Obama has a seven point advantage (46-39) among white women. Again, note the higher number of undecideds in the WSJ/NBC poll.
Both the WSJ and NBC note a subgroup of white sububan women, with NBC putting it this way:
McCain leads Obama among white suburban women (44-38), group which makes up about 10 percent of all voters that Hart calls “absolutely critical†for both candidates in the fall.
Hart (the Democratic pollster here) is reflecting the sort of thinking set forth in books like The Emerging Democratic Majority, which argues that elections are increasingly decided by suburban voters.
Having covered the white male swing vote for a while, it is notable that McCain currently has a 20 point lead over Obama among them, 55% to 35%. The report from Gallup in May had almost identical results. However, as the WSJ reports: “The pollsters say race does not explain the gap; recent Democratic nominees, all white men, lost big among white men.” Indded, Bush won this demographic by 25 points in 2004.
Other results in the WSJ/NBC poll are consistent with other prior polls. The 62% support from Hispanic voters matches the prior Gallup number. This is about what Gore got in 2000 and better than the 53% Kerry got in 2004.ÂÂ
The 19% defection rate from Clinton voters is slightly higher than the 14% reported in a February Pew poll. This brings us full circle in the sense that it shows how little has changed over the past three months or so in these horserace polls. The most significant fact about them may be that neither McCain nor Obama has consistently cracked 50% in any of them.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Show me a poll in October, and I’ll admit it has relevance to the November election!
Clever title Karl and it proves vindication on the first comment, well done.
I wonder, why don’t (haven’t?) these polls include outlier candidates, Bob Barr for instance. Though any tally he may take be small, it can yet have an important effect on the final outcome, no? And if my guess is possible, why wouldn’t the pollsters include that knowable data?
As I’ve said before, these polls show Obama’s in trouble. And it’s going to get worse.
Unlike PW regulars, most of the public has been paying only scant attention to politics. My wife is much smarter than me — Oberlin, Stanford, department manager at a computer firm — but politics isn’t her bag. I had to tell her Obama had quit his church and why, because our local Left-wing paper hasn’t covered it, and that’s the only place she gets her news. Similarly, my 50 year old brother has been far more interested in the new Battlestar Gallactica than he has the election. I returned home recently after living and working with him the last 4 months and when I was there, there was no damn way he’d let me control the TV clicker except when Megyn Kelley was wearing those sexy little f*ck me glasses she was testing for a while. When the time comes, unnuanced people like my wife and brother will see Obama’s broad outlines and decide the geezer is a safer choice.
There’s a hurricane forming just over the horizon. Barry has not proven adept at coping. Ray Nagin might want to tell him to stop throwing wheel-chocks under his buses.
Those wheel-chocks are his close friends and associates. He has to throw them under the bus. And soon he will be the only person left on the bus, at which point he will say that he isn’t the person he used to know as he dives under the bus.
Wierd election.
It’s hard to say what any of this means, other than O! is a much weaker candidate than the brown nosers in the press are trying to make him out to be.
But, at the same time, McCain’s image in my mind is that of a batch of pasta that has been boiling in the pot for at least an hour too long. He needs to wake up to the fact that the drive bys are, ipso facto, an arm of Obama’s campaign.
McCain at least needs to start portraying O! as he really is, and not try to beat him from inside Obama’a compound of self made “rules”.
If Obama defines the arena (which it looks like McCain is going to let him do), McCain will lose what little support that he has among the conservatives.
I mean why should we care, if McCain himself is dense enough to let O! put rhetorical shackles on his legs?
Nice guys get their asses blown away.
McCain at least needs to start portraying O! as he really is, and not try to beat him from inside Obama’a compound of self made “rulesâ€Â.
If Obama defines the arena (which it looks like McCain is going to let him do), McCain will lose what little support that he has among the conservatives.
This battle was lost a long long long time ago.
I mean why should we care, if McCain himself is dense enough to let O! put rhetorical shackles on his legs?
Perhaps the McCain Campaign itself lives in fear of an MSM-constructed “rhetorical moment”, leading to what is, in effect, a strategy involving McCain’s pandering to the MSM, which for its own part also does not expect much from a Black Man beyond an aura!, thus granting Obama its own form of oso gratifying Affirmative Action, but so far conveniently ignoring the fact that Obama really might become the MSM’s President, too – or maybe even hoping for it so that the the Simple Tool Box can mate with the Simple Tool.
Karl’s [nice job] emphasis on the organizational gap between the Campaigns only makes things look bleaker. Still, I believe that Obama will deep-six himself in relation to real events, admitting also that I don’t actually know if I know what-the-hell I’m talking about in the first place.
Anyway, we conservatives just “got to Keep on pushing, some way, somehow.” Without hoping for a savior.
Tonight, Keith Olberdouche is going to do a “special comment” on John McCain. I suggest that he watch it! Maybe he’ll realize that he’s in for the fight of his life, and act accordingly.
-Well, I just heard that Gitmo detainees now have constitutional rights! Why don’t we give them citizenship while were at it? God, what a way to fight a war! Law and Order’s Dick Wolf has to be gnurling his crankhandle over this ruling! He’ll be able to create a “Special War Prosecution Unit” spinoff. Are we even a fucking sovereign nation anymore?
– Its almost like American put on an election, and no one took it serious.
If Olberdouche is doing a “special comment” then I imagine he is going to call McCain “The worst person in the world.” Cuz that’s Olby’s schtick.
BBH, while I was attending parochial school, we were shown Insight films. One of the films featured Martin Sheen as a mime(I know you don’t have to say it)! The sign he held up during the film stated “Tomorrow is cancelled due to lack of interest today”.
cranky-d, he usually only has room for three. Since Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and Rupert Murdoch are the “worst person in the world” de jour, I don’t see that he’ll have the room. Hence, the “special comment” segment is required.
Golly, thanks.
And I am the safer choice.