Research 2000 released an 800 sample poll of “likely voters” on July 11th. The interviews were conducted from July 7th through July 10th. The margin of error is 3.5%. The poll was sponsored by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV. tiny URL
…QUESTION: If the 2008 election for President were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choice were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, and John McCain, the Republican?
OBAMA – 48%
MCCAIN – 43%
UNDECIDED – 9%
…QUESTION: If the 2008 election for President were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choice were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, and John McCain, the Republican?
DEMOCRATS
OBAMA – 84%
MCCAIN – 9%
UNDECIDED – 7%
REPUBLICANS
OBAMA – 8%
MCCAIN – 81%
UNDECIDED – 11%
INDEPENDENTS
OBAMA – 47%
MCCAIN – 43%
UNDECIDED – 10%
MEN
OBAMA – 44%
MCCAIN – 49%
UNDECIDED – 7%
WOMEN
OBAMA – 52%
MCCAIN – 37%
UNDECIDED – 11%
Interesting. 11% of self identified republican “likely voters” are undecided. Nothing fails like failure. There appears to be a gender gap.
This can be said for the national polls too.
Polls are all over the map. The pollsters have no idea what turnout is like, and it would appear more people are declaring themselves Democrats. If the last point is true, then the pool of “real” independents have changed. There are fewer people leaning Democratic, so we should not be too concerned if independents are not splitting toward the Democrats as they might be expected to.
My guess is, until the campaigns are well underway in September, polls right now are not to be trusted. If the same polling organization using the same assumptions about the electorate show changes over several polls, then we might have something about “movement.”
In the meantime, the most important thing we can do in Missouri is register as many people as possible before registration closes in October.