Saturday, August 09, 2008
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that the race for the White House is tied—Barack Obama and John McCain each attract 44% of the vote. When "leaners" are included, it’s McCain 47% and Obama 46%. With leaners, the candidates have been within one point of each other for nine straight days (see recent daily results). Tracking Polls are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day.
McCain leads by nineteen points among White Men and by eight points among White Women. Obama leads 94% to 5% among African-American voters and by twenty-one points among Hispanic voters. We invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls. Premium Members can review additional information and get an advance look at new data on the influence of money in politics by visiting the Daily Snapshot.
McCain is currently viewed favorably by 54% of the nation’s voters, Obama by 53%. Other key stats of Election 2008 are updated daily at Obama-McCain: By the Numbers. 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.
Voters see stark differences between Obama and McCain on two key issues of Election 2008—Iraq and Energy. On Iraq, voters believe Obama’s top priority is getting the troops home rather than winning the War. Forty-nine percent (49%) of voters say that is their top priority as well. On energy, voters believe McCain is more focused on finding new sources of energy rather than reducing the amount of energy we consume. That’s also the view held by 65% of voters.
Each Saturday morning, we review the week’s key polls to see What They Told Us. This week’s review includes new state polling data from Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Washington.
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 60.5% 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.
