Ladies Starting To Love Them Some John McCain
This isn’t good news for Barack Obama.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while McCain earns 45%. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 49%, McCain 46%. …
As McCain has begun to chip away as Obama’s convention bounce, most of his gains have come among women voters. Obama still leads 51% to 44% among women, but that seven-point edge is just half the fourteen point lead he enjoyed last Tuesday. McCain leads by three among men, little changed in recent days.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Obama voters now say they are voting with enthusiasm for their candidate while 17% are primarily voting against the other candidate. For McCain, those numbers are 65% and 28% respectively. Before the Republican convention, just 54% of McCain voters were voting enthusiastically for him rather than simply voting against Obama.
Not only is Obama’s overall poll lead eroding, his lead among one of his key demographics is absolutely crumbling. Women and young voters make up the base of Obama’s support. Historically, campaigns dependent on young voters haven’t turned out well because while young voters are very good at showing up for rallies and such they’re usually not that great at showing up at the ballot box on election day. Women are a different matter, of course, but if McCain but grab a significant chunk of that demographic…Obama had better look out.
Which is an obvious point, if Oprah’s refusal to have Sarah Palin on her show tells us anything at all.
I don’t like the identity politics game. I don’t think anyone should be supporting Sarah Palin because she’s a woman (she has plenty of qualifications to win over our support without bringing her gender up). But that said, Sarah Palin has clearly struck a chord with women around this country and that may well give McCain the momentum he needs to beat Obama.
