The shocking new poll out by Quinnipiac today shows Obama with an eight-point lead in my state of Florida. It's a complete reversal from a Q-poll done just three weeks ago that showed McCain with a 50-43 percent lead, but it continues an upward trend from a pre-debate poll that had Obama up in the Sunshine State by six (49-43 percent). Although this huge swing in Obama's favor in just three weeks may give some folks justifiable reason to be skeptical, the poll numbers mesh with what I'm seeing and hearing in my state.
We all know that most voters believe Obama won the first debate, and in Florida it is clear that the debate has contributed to Obama's growing lead (listen up pundits!). A few weeks ago I posted a diary about a focus group of undecided Florida voters being tracked by the St. Petersburg Times. One of the the most clear-cut findings from the focus group was that McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate had driven the vast majority of the group to favor Obama. This growing distaste for Palin among many Floridians is confirmed by the latest Q-poll:
Palin gets a negative 36-39 percent favorability, down from 47-23 percent September 11. Democratic running mate Joe Biden has a 47-27 percent favorability, up from 38-28 percent.
I should add that Palin has the lowest positives and highest negatives by far of any of the four candidates among Floridians. Obama has the highest favorability rating and lowest unfavorable rating among Florida voters, with a 58-33 percent margin, compared to 52-39 percent for McCain. And my state's positive view of Obama has skyrocketed in the past few weeks, while McCain's has plummeted. As a Quinnipiac spokesperson put it:
"During the past three weeks, Florida voters lost their faith in Sen. McCain. His net favorability dropped in half and Sen. Obama's almost doubled over the same period."
That focus group of undecided Floridians also revealed that although many in the group were leaning to Obama, some of them strongly so, none were ready to commit to him 100%. Many said they were waiting for the debates to help them make up their minds for good. Well, it looks like the first debate helped many of them make up their minds, in favor of Obama:
Among the 79 percent of Florida voters who say they watched the debate, 49 percent said Obama did better, with 34 percent saying McCain won.
The Q-poll also shows that the all-important independent voters are moving in hordes to support Obama, and this helps explain his growing lead in the state.
"One look at independents shows the massive change. Three weeks ago, McCain had a seven-point edge among Florida independents. Today, Obama leads among that group by 12 points."
And let's not forget the many crossover votes that seem to be going Obama's way. Yesterday I wrote a diary in which I shared a personal story of two acquaintances of ours who are Republican but told us this week that they just can't vote Republican anymore; Obama has their votes:
It turns out that Doug and Rick were hurting much more than we had realized. Rick has a long commute to work each day, and they told us that with the rise in gas prices they figured out that he now must spend an additional $500 each month on gas. So Doug has been forced to work more overtime at his job to make up the difference.
Even worse, Rick just found out that his employer is no longer going to pay for his health care insurance. So not only does he have to pay for it himself, but he's scared to death about the fact that with his new private insurer his insurance could get dropped at any time. The lack of security is frightening to them, particularly now that they are starting to get up in age a bit.
"We just can't do it anymore," Doug said, referring to voting Republican.
Rick's and Doug's personal experience shows up in the poll results:
The economy is the most important issue in the election, 60 percent of Florida voters say, and voters post-debate trust Obama more than McCain 53-39 percent to handle this issue.
But I'll end this diary on a sobering note. Obama is going to need this nice cushion in Florida, given my state's well-deserved reputation for election hanky-panky and overall unfriendliness to voters. In an editorial today, the St. Petersburg Times notes that Florida was named "the most hostile state in the nation to new voters" by three voting rights advocacy groups, and explains why:
Monday is the deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 4 election. That's an unreasonably early deadline, but state law says residents must register at least 29 days before an election in order to vote. Other states such as Maine and Minnesota allow citizens to register and vote on the same day. With the ability to tap into electronic databases to verify people's identity and eligibility, there is no need to require registration so far in advance.
Florida also has an unreasonable "no match-no vote" law that seems designed to deny as many citizens as possible the ability to register. Originally, if a computer determined that a registrant's voter registration application did not perfectly match his Social Security or Florida driver's license information, the registration was invalid and little effort was made to double-check. Problems as simple as having the name "William" on one's identification but writing down "Bill" on the registration form was enough to throw it into doubt.
The Times goes on to explain that some recent state legislative changes and some new protocols instituted by the Secretary of State have improved the horrific no-match law a bit, but the law still provides uncecessary roadblocks to voting.
Voters cannot resolve a discrepancy on Election Day and cast a valid vote on the spot, even if they produce a driver's license or passport. Instead, the voter would be given a provisional ballot and would have to get a copy of his or her driver's license or Social Security card to the election supervisor's office within two days of the election for the vote to count. That is too burdensome and guarantees perhaps thousands of provisional ballots will not be counted in a tight election year.
So while I am certainly celebrating Florida's recent, growing shift to Obama, let's not get overconfident. We have a lot of work to do in Florida to get everyone to the polls, and to make sure that every voter actually has a chance to vote.
UPDATE:
I forgot to give a shout out to The Great Schlep. If you aren't familiar with this campaign, The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor. You can learn more about the campaign at its cool website (and be sure to check out the video with comedian Sarah Silverman!).
UPDATE 2:
Here's an inspiring update from chambersc, a student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando:
Since I'm a student, I personally know that, as of right now, the Univ. of Central Florida has registered 8,000+ voters since the beginning of the semester. That's only 4 weeks. Our goal is 10K by Monday. Also, the Univ. of Florida has about 7,000 as of this morning. I've/we've registered so many people. We've had so many students come up to us that are really excited to vote.
Way to go! Voter registration and GOTV for students at Florida's colleges and universities will be so critical to an Obama victory in the state.
UPDATE 3:
A characteristically disgusting, race-baiting response from the McCain campaign to the poll, as reported by brownsox:
"Our polling shows us up 7. My guess is they over sampled blacks and under sampled Cubans."
Yech.
UPDATE 4:
Live on C-SPAN right now (noon ET): Bill Clinton rally for Obama at the University of Central Florida. (H/T jackdawkins01) The arena there holds 12,000, but chambersc predicts double that number showing up.
Here's a live feed of the rally from a local TV station.
UPDATE 5:
Somehow part of my diary thread turned into the relative importance of yard signs and bumper stickers! I won't get into the middle of THAT one, but I will share my own personal story about bumper stickers. About a week and a half ago my partner was in DC for work and picked up some Obama bumper stickers at National Airport. Shortly after he got home we put them on both of our cars. My partner has a mint-condition 1992 Oldsmobile convertible that he loves almost as much as me, and this is the first time he has ever put any kind of bumper sticker of any kind on his car.
Anyway, the first thing I did after putting the sticker on my car was to go to our gym. Now that I had a sticker on my car, I started paying more attention to the stickers on other cars. In the gym parking lot I noticed five other cars in my row alone with Obama bumper stickers (including one enormous red pick-up truck that actually had two stickers on it), and zero cars with McCain stickers. And this is not the type of gym where I expect a lot of people to be politically aware (lots of muscleheads, boxers, etc.). Not an earth-shattering tale, but one more indication, albeit small, of definite support for Obama that I'm seeing here in the Sunshine State.