Gallup Tracking Poll Thread [Obama vs McCain]

[agcatter]

I don't think anything is having an effect right now.  No one is paying attention and the numbers bouncing around are mostly noise.

Pretty well frozen nationally at Obama + 4.

[agcatter]

Amazingly stable thru the summer.  A 4 to 5 point race since the ist part of June.  Not even worth looking at the tracking polls until the conventions.  There will be no change.

[agcatter]

Alcon, I have to admit I can't help glancing at them.

I need help.

[agcatter]

We won't see much movement until the conventions and then just mini bounces.  I predict the race stays about like it is for the next three weeks. 

[agcatter]

Rasmussen uses very hard party weighting (currently D + 9).  That means less variance on weekends.  Even when less Republicans are polled on weekends (which is normal) the Republican numbers are counted at 31.5% of the sample and the Democrats are weighted at 40.5% regardless of the number of Dems in the sample.

Rasmussen adjusts the weight of each party he uses based on a constantly rolling 3 month sample of 15,000 adults (5,000 per month) asking their Party ID.  Based on that he had it at D + 10 in July and tweeked it to D + 9 August 1st.

Interestingly his July sample of 5000 showed D + 7.8.  If he gets something around that number for his 5000 August sample, we can probably expect his D + 9 to decline a half a point or so beginning September 1st.  Or it could go up if his August party ID sample comes up more Democratic.

Gallup varies more on weekends because they don't use the hard party weighting and are reliant on whatever number of Republicans or Democrats they happen to pick up on a given night.  There will thus be more fluctuation especially on the weekends.

Rasmussen used the  method he's using now in 2004 and absolutely nailed it.

Of course, Rasmussen is using likely voters as opposed to registered in Gallup.

[agcatter]

I'd say it is Obama + 1.5 at present and definitely not the Obama + 6 or 7 you see in Pew and CBS/NYT, Newsweek etc.

[agcatter]

Bounces don't occur the day of an event.  It wasn't until 3 or 4 days into the Obama world tour did the bounce start to show up.

In any event, it's a temporary bounce. 

[agcatter]

VP selection is not going to give either candidate a bounce.  It's the convention this week that will give Obama a bounce and we won't see any of that until the middle or late part of the week - but he will get a bounce.

[agcatter]

Yep, PUMA.

I suspect Obama will be up 6 or 7 by Monday.  Wall to wall lovefest in Denver plus another "tingle" speech in front of 75K cultists chanting the messiah's name and giving the O sign.  Nurenburg all over again.