Rasmussen Daily Presidential Poll

[Susie924]

Saturday, August 02, 2008

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that the race for the White House has become breathtakingly close. Barack Obama attracts 44% of the vote while John McCain earns 43%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 47% and McCain 46%. While the race has been very close for much of the past few weeks, McCain has never held the lead for even a single day in the two weeks since Obama clinched the nomination (see recent daily results). Tracking Polls are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day.

Each Saturday morning, Rasmussen Reports takes a look at the week’s key polls to see What They Told Us.

New data released today shows that the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats fell in July. While Obama’s party still enjoys a big advantage over the GOP, the gap between the parties is now the smallest that it has been since January. Sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) and we will keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.

McCain is viewed favorably by 56% of voters, Obama by 53%. McCain earns positive reviews from 86% of Republicans while Obama does the same from 82% of Democrats. Among unaffiliated voters, 60% have a favorable opinion of McCain. For Obama, that number is 50%.

Cindy McCain is viewed favorably by 50% of American voters, Michelle Obama by 46%. Other key stats of Election 2008 are updated daily at Obama-McCain: By the Numbers. Premium Members can also visit the Daily Snapshot for additional information.

Yesterday, Rasmussen Reports released data on a topic of interest to poll junkies and armchair campaign analysts alike, day-of-week polling bias. A review of the data since June 3 shows little evidence to support the notion that some days of the week poll better for Republicans while other days are better for Democrats.

Rasmussen Reports has recently released data on the Presidential race in Alaska, Kentucky, Montana, and Texas. Other data showed indicted Alaska Senator Ted Stevens trails by double digits in his bid for re-election. Proving once again that voters are willing to grade politicians on a curve, 66% say Stevens is at least as ethical as most politicians. An update by Larry Sabato says Stevens is headed for defeat..

Thirty percent (30%) of conservative Democrats plan to vote for John McCain. Nineteen percent (19%) of White Democrats say the same. There are nearly twice as many uncommitted voters today as there were four years ago in late July (see other recent demographic highlights).

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator currently shows now Obama leading in states with 210 Electoral College votes while McCain leads in states with 165 votes. When leaners are included, it’s Obama 273, McCain 227. Rasmussen Markets data gives Obama a 62.9% chance of winning the White House.

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 1,000 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 3,000 Likely Voters--is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for the full-week results are available for Premium Members.

Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. Our baseline targets are established based upon survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews). For the month of August, the targets are 40.6% Democrat, 31.6% Republican, and 27.8% unaffiliated. For July, the targets were 41.4% Democrat, 31.5% Republican, and 27.1% unaffiliated (see party trends and analysis).

A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning.