http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080820/pl_politico/12656
McCain winning in new poll, follows trend
David Paul Kuhn
1 hour, 35 minutes ago
John McCain has overtaken Barack Obama in the presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released Wednesday morning.
McCain leads Obama 46 to 41 percent among likely voters, which the poll found is outside the margin of error. Reuters/Zogby had Obama ahead by 7-points as recently as mid July.
McCain's resurgence comes at the doorstep of the Democratic Convention, and follows other polling that collectively indicates the presidential race has become a dead heat.
Only one major national survey, a USA Today/Gallup Poll in late July, has shown McCain ahead since the general election began in early June. But that 4-point McCain lead was the mirror opposite of other national surveys taken over the same period, leaving reasonable suspicion it was an outlier.
Today's Reuters/Zogby poll conducted from August 14 to 16, by contrast, seems to follow a recent trend.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released Tuesday, and taken from August 15 to the 18, found that Obama's lead over McCain had fallen to within the margin of error, 45 to 43 percent. That same poll pegged Obama ahead by 12 points in mid June.
A more tepid shift was measured in another national poll taken from August 12 to 17 by Quinnipiac University. That survey had Obama leading 47 to 42 percent. However, the same poll in mid July had Obama leading McCain 50 to 41 percent.
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found, in a poll taken July 31 and August 10, that Obama was besting McCain by narrow margin of only 46 to 43 percent. Pew's mid July polling had Obama ahead by 5 points. In late June, Pew had Obama ahead by 8 points, 48 to 40 percent.
And by one measure, for the first time Tuesday McCain has also pulled ahead, though tenuously, in the Electoral College count, 274 to 264, according to the RealClearPolitics average of state polling that includes narrow leads in swing states. The shift occurred after Indiana—the home of Democratic vice presidential prospect Sen. Evan Bayh—switched to McCain's electoral coffer.
The Reuters/Zogby poll, which was taken by telephone of 1,089 likely voters and had margin of error of 3 percentage points, found that no one factor explains McCain’s gain. In that poll the Republican presumptive nominee now narrowly leads among independents, a flip from last month. McCain has also sewn up his base, leading with conservatives 74 to 15 percent.
McCain continues to have more support among Republicans than Obama has from Democrats, though Pew measured an increase in support among evangelical Protestants even before the Saddleback forum Saturday night.
Perhaps most startlingly to Democrats, Reuters/Zogby measures that McCain is seen as the better manager of the economy, by a margin of 49 percent to 40 percent over Obama. In that poll half of voters cited the economy as the most important issue, as other surveys have as well.
The results also follow sustained attacks by a more aggressive McCain campaign and Obama's vacation last week.
Pew has also found that McCain has made gains with the public "as the candidate who would use the best judgment in a crisis" and "an increasing percentage see him as the candidate who can get things done." The Quinnipiac poll found that likely voters view McCain as "better qualified" to "deal with Russia" by a margin of 55 to 27 percent.
The Gallup daily tracking poll, which samples roughly a 1,000 Americans daily, has shown a steady race all summer. For the months of June and July Obama held an average lead of 3-percentage points. That same average 3-point lead held in August, until this week. Gallup polling since Monday has shown a tighter race, though not outside the boundaries of past summer fluctuation. The latest Gallup measure shows Obama only ahead by 1 percentage point, 45 to 44 percent.
Still, by early August, even the steadiness of Obama's narrow lead was seen as an underperformance by leading pollsters, considering the constellation of issues--from the flagging economy to the unpopular president to eight in ten Americans viewing the nation on the wrong track--that favor any generic Democrat this year.
Obama will head into their convention now effectively tied with McCain, presenting Obama with the ideal opportunity to regain his footing.
This week's polling represents the last clear gauge of the presidential race until the second week of September. Between then and today both nominees' are expected to announce their number two and the political conventions will take place. The condensed schedule means that bounces in the polls may be both fleeting and difficult to measure in the two weeks ahead.
