Rasmussen POLL: Obama 51, McCain 46 - Obama 5% lead

[HughMoran]

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows Barack Obama attracting 51% of the vote while John McCain earns 46%. Obama’s five-point advantage is down from an eight-point lead yesterday but up a point from the lead he held a week ago. With today’s results, Obama has been ahead by four-to-eight points every single day for 32 straight days (see trends).

During that 32-day stretch, Obama’s voter support has stayed between 50% and 52% every day while McCain has stayed in the 44% to 46% range.

Obama now wins 11% of Republican votes while McCain gets 10% of Democrats. The candidates are essentially even among unaffiliated voters. Obama leads by ten among women overall, but McCain has a five-point advantage among white women. McCain leads by a single point among men

(edited to add text)

[dennis4868]

1. These polls...

are driving me crazy....

[leftynyc]

2. Expected tightening of the polls

As long as Sen Obama stays over 50%, I'm okay with it. Nobody wins by 8% these days.

[dennis4868]

3. why do you think...

they are tightening? Someone asked me if it is because McCain is going so negative and the robocalls....I don't think so but trying to figure out why....hmmmmm......

[leftynyc]

17. Undecided voters are now deciding

And the polls always seem to tighten in the last week historically. I've been reading for weeks how the undecided are expected to break for mclame. That's what we're seeing. As long as Sen Obama stays over 50%, it doesn't matter what mclame does.

[JCMach1]

4. Exactly... the tightening in the race is real, but Obama is still above 50%

[Drunken Irishman]

31. No it isn't real.

I see no evidence of this race tightening. Just because Rasmussen has Obama back up to five doesn't mean anything. Rasmussen has generally had Obama's support from 5-8 points the last two months. It ebbs and flows, so I don't see this as "real".

Yeesh.

[JCMach1]

36. Don't take it the wrong way... It's great that Obama is above 50% given 2000 and 2004

If he was leading say 46-44 I would be worried...

[Meshuga]

5. This is just a national poll anyway

If winning the popular vote meant winning the election I would give these polls more value. But to me they are meaningless if we cannot close the deal in the electoral college.

[dennis4868]

6. good point...

my worry is that if the polls continue to get close it will be easier for McShitHead to steal the election...plus the MSM would love to repeat close polls to help give McCain more momentum...

[Jennicut]

8. Dennis, it says on the Razz website that Obama has

"has been ahead by four-to-eight points every single day for 32 straight days (see trends).

During that 32-day stretch, Obama’s voter support has stayed between 50% and 52% every day while McCain has stayed in the 44% to 46% range."

This is just normal fluctuation per their own polling. Hotline has stayed the same. Lets wait for Gallup.

[dennis4868]

10. I can always count on you....

to bring clarity to changing poll numbers

:-)

[Jennicut]

13. Thats what I'm here for. You are like my little brother on DU

even though I don't know if I am older than you are not. :)

[HughMoran]

11. Yes, I have since added the text

that shows that this is normal fluctuation and that Obama is up one from last Mondays polling, and it's known that McCain does better over the weekend for some reason. Good thing voting is on a weekday ;)

[cliffordu]

28. Yep, I was thinking that same thing. I expect another bump for O tomorrow.

Weekends always favor gramps and mooselini for some fucked up reason....

[dajoki]

7. I can't wait...

till this is over already, its driving me nuts everyday with these polls!!

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

18. So soon now...it'll be over!

Just like Christmas evening (if you're Christian, anyway), there will be a surreal silence and lack of franticness. No polls, no "if I'm elected" speeches. On November 5th, I plan to take a long nature-walk and listen to the real world. I won't have to worry about what Zogby said, or Rass, or Gallup, etc.

(Really folks, we've got to stop this endless, year-round presidential election cycle! Life's too short for so much tension, divisiveness and aggravation.)

[BeyondGeography]

9. For sanity's sake, pay attention to state polls

The national numbers could be anything from McCain running up the score in Oklahoma to tightening in the battlegrounds; no way to tell.

Nothing changes; Obama holds the Kerry states and has solid leads in NM, CO and VA. Until that changes, I'm ignoring the national numbers.

[dennis4868]

12. I think alot of people...

here wish they were as mentally strong as you must be...hard to ignore these polls when they are part of the MSM discussion.....

[fugop]

14. Off the trail

I still think some of the tightening is due to Obama's being off the trail and out of the limelight toward the end of last week (and all day Friday) due to visiting his grandmother. Then the weekend came in, when people tuned out. On the other hand, I'm happy he's got a closing speech today that looks awesome, as well as the rally with Bill Clinton in Florida and his Wednesday night ad buy. It seems that when the spotlight shines on Obama, he goes up in the poll. But when he disappears from view, things do seem to tighten.

[DeeDeeNY]

15. That "white women" figure is perplexing

Especially after McLame used air quotes mentioning "women's health" at the last debate.
These polls are driving me nuts.

[Jersey Devil]

16. Polls are not that important now - It's all about GOTV

There are probably so few truly undecided or soft votes now that I doubt anything short of a major crisis or gaffe of stupendous proportions could change anything. If we get our people out to vote we will win even in areas where we are even or slightly behind in polls. Only if we do not do that can McCain have any hope whatsoever of catching up.

[brianna69]

19. Reality check for some perspective

Daily trackers comparison - last Monday/Today

R2000/Kos: O+8/O+8
Rasmussen: O+4/O+5
Hotline: O+5/O+8
Zogby: O+6/O+5

We're doing fine. Obama is 50 and above in all trackers. Plus remember Obama will have his closing case on all networks on Nov 29. Everytime Obama appears before a national audience(as evidenced by all 3 debates) his numbers go up.

[WI_DEM]

20. The polls will tighten somewhat as stupid uninformed last minute deciders go with McCain

but I think there might be a last minute break for Obama over the weekend.

[HughMoran]

23. That's how it looks on the Pollster.com chart

McCain is simply getting some of the undecided voters, he is not eating into Obama's support.

This includes all of this morning's polls - still 7.3%!

[Schulzz]

21. Rasmussen tracking has been stable in the last 32 days.

Obama's lead has ranged from 50-46 to 52-44. If he doesn't drop below 50%, it's just a statistical noise.

[regnaD kciN]

22. If so, it's a hell of a lot of noise today...

A 3-point shift in a tracker like Rasmussen or dKos means that yesterday's sample was 9 points better for McCain than the Thursday sample that fell off. For example, in dKos, Thursday was O+14 while Sunday was only O+5. Now, granted, each of them may have had a very good Obama polling day fall off, but that doesn't change the fact that yesterday's sample in each was extremely good for McCain.

Tracking polls will show some variances from day to day as a matter of course. But it's generally no more than a 1- or 2-point shift. A 3-point shift is quite unusual...and when you get that same shift in two of the four main trackers the same day, it's really a "WTF?" moment.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. I suspect for yesterday only McSame Was Down 49-44 Or So Based On Kos And Ras

I guess this tightening was expected...It has happened in the last five elections...That's a long and interesting pattern...It's probably Dems and Reps coming back home...

[dennis4868]

25. you make very good points....

Something is going on out there....but remember, many of the numbers for the polls today are at the same numbers they were last week at this time....let's just see how the daily tracker do tomorrow...let's hope the McCain mini surge ends today!

[writes3000]

29. Oy, why do people not understand tracking polls?

If the national average is around 8 or 9 points, you're going to get a one day high of 14 pts and you're also going to get a one day low of 5 pts. That's how it works.

If you're looking for warning signs of a trend, wait for three days. If the strong majority of polls show a steady shift towards a candidate, then you can sound alarm bells or celebrate depending on what side you're on.

But this "Ooo, look what happened on this one day with three polls" is just silly, hand-wringing for the sake of hand-wringing.

[Drunken Irishman]

33. Because they like to panic.

I think there are a few on this board who would LOVE to see Obama fall behind for they can freak out and say, "I told you so!!!!!".

It really gets old reading these threads. I swear, DU can be annoyingly negative.

[HughMoran]

34. Happens every cycle

Yes, it's extremely annoying. I almost didn't hit the "Post Message" button on this thread for that reason, then realized someone else would and hiding from the numbers doesn't make sense anyway. Since McCain has historically done well on weekends, I'm not sure this isn't just "more of the same".

[Drunken Irishman]

32. Have you not followed Rasmussen's numbers before?

They've done this a lot over the last month and a half.

Go re-look at their results.

[Schulzz]

35. But it's also possible that a double-digits Obama day dropped off.

We will see what happens, I think Obama will still be ahead by at least 4-6 points by the end of the week.

[Stagecoach]

26. McCain

always polls better on weekends....I've noticed that. And then by mid-week Obama's lead stretches.

[mvd]

27. Obama probably had a particularly good day drop off

This poll has generally been around 5% for a while.

[bushisanidiot]

30. I think that last paragraph is why repukes think they are still in the game.

"Obama now wins 11% of Republican votes while McCain gets 10% of Democrats." They think the country is split evenly, 50% dem, 50% repuke and that's where they are terribly wrong. Dems outnumber repukes, so we aren't relying on a bigger percentage of the independants as the repukes are to win. We've already got the advantage without independants because there are more of us.