Wow, Obama has opened up an 8 point lead!
Details and analysis below...
These results, from Sept. 25-27, span the time period since John McCain made the announcement that he was temporarily suspending his campaign and returning to Washington to work for a bipartisan solution to the financial crisis, and since Congressional leaders first announced progress towards the resolution of a financial bailout bill. The results also include one complete day (Saturday) after the first presidential debate on Friday night. McCain had reached a point where he was tied with Obama earlier in the week, but Obama has gained steadily in each of the last three days' reports. Overall, Obama has gained four percentage points over the last three days, while McCain has lost four points, for an eight-point swing in the "gap" or margin.
The full impact of the debate and its aftermath will not be reflected in the tracking data until Tuesday's report, which will be based on interviewing conducted Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Still, Gallup's one-day read on the standing of the two candidates on Saturday suggests that Obama held the lead over McCain among registered voters that night, just as he had for the two previous nights.
This is absolutely fantastic news. This shows the impact of McCain's little stunt about the financial crisis and that it didn't do anything to make voters feel better. It's pretty clear voters saw this as the stunt that it truly was.
The last time that Obama has opened up a lead of this size was during his foreign tour, which included Europe, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan (while McCain was at the Sausage House.) The key takeaway here is that this was before Palin, and before the RNC. Essentially, McCain needs to try to make some big news, and God knows he's tried.
Gallup notes that these numbers do not fully reflect post-debate polling, and we'll have to wait until Tuesday to have a clear picture on how the devbate affected the poll numbers. Still:
Gallup's one-day read on the standing of the two candidates on Saturday suggests that Obama held the lead over McCain among registered voters that night [of the debate], just as he had for the two previous nights.
And now, for a personal note: Please don't get complacent. We've got the wind at our backs, but we need to fight as if we're down by one. I'm going to volunteer today, anyone else going? Just remember that the Republicans will not roll over and admit defeat. So we need to fight as hard as we can until the last poll closes on November 4th.
More to come...