Economic Growth Gives Lift to Obama in NYT/CBS Poll

Good news for supporters of President Obama his job approval rating has been going up steadily as the economy has been improving.

From the New York Times

President Obama’s political standing is rising along with voters’ optimism that the economy is getting better, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, a shift that coincides with continued Republican disquiet over the field of candidates seeking to replace him.

Read more about it ... Here

Poll: Corzine Catches Up

By this time today it's old news, but the race for Governor has now become a horse race where anyone can win.

An independent public poll released today by Fairleigh Dickinson University has Jon Corzine leading Chris Christie by 44%-43% with Chris Daggett getting 4%. When Daggett's name is included, Corzine leads 38%-37% with Daggett getting 17%. It's the first public poll of the year with Corzine ahead.

All recent polls show the race closing and Corzine with the momentum.

MilitaryTimes.com article claiming poll respondents are "[w]ary about Obama" did not note poll was based on voluntary responses

Media Matters - In a December 29 MilitaryTimes.com article headlined "2008 Military Times poll: Wary about Obama," staff writer Brendan McGarry reported: "When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic, according to a Military Times survey." McGarry further reported that "[t]he responses are not representative of the opinions of the military as a whole," but he did not mention that according to a separate MilitaryTimes.com article, the poll was based on voluntary responses by subscribers to Army Times Publishing Co. newspapers rather than a random statistical sample of service members, and that therefore no margin of error can be calculated for the poll. A report on the poll on the January 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends also omitted this information, as did the Chicago Sun-Times' website, which posted excerpts of McGarry's article.

Read the full story >>>Here

Tracking Poll Update

Sen. Barack Obama is holding solid leads in nearly every tracking poll of the presidential race and has broken 50% in four of them.

Diageo/Hotline: Obama 50%, McCain 40%

Gallup: Obama 51%, McCain 42%

Rasmussen: Obama 52%, McCain 45%

Research 2000: Obama 52%, McCain 40%

Zogby: Obama 48%, McCain 44%

Polls Find Biden Wins

A CNN poll of Americans who watched the vice presidential debate shows that most felt Sen. Joe Biden beat Gov. Sarah Palin, 51% to 36%.

A CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll of uncommitted voters show Biden winning 46% to 21% with 33% calling it a draw.

Ohio is Deadlocked

Political Wire

A new InsiderAdvantage survey in Ohio shows Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain each receiving 46% support.

Key findings: "As McCain struggled with his response to last week's economic news, his support among segments of the voting population that might seem vulnerable to a weak economy declined... The most distressing news for the McCain camp comes from senior voters and independents... McCain enjoyed a more typical 52% to 41% lead among voters age 65 and over. In this latest survey McCain and Obama are even with 46% of the senior vote each. Finally, among those who describe themselves as "independent" as to their political affiliation, McCain dropped from a significant 51% to 34% advantage, to a less impressive 49% to 42% lead."

Focusing on Palin was the smart approach

Good news for the Obama campaign, it seems as though the Palin bounce has started its return to earth.  The Daily Kos is reporting that her poll number for the past week have taken a nose dive as people are beginning  learn more about her:

"Bloggers and tradmed reporters took a hard look at Sarah Palin and began raking her over the coals for myriad transgressions. She is a liar with theocratic tendencies, sports an intellect that makes Bush look like a Mensa member, and features an obvious fondness for Cheney-style abuses of power. And that's not even the worst of it.

But then the worriers began to question, "Why are we focusing on Palin? McCain is getting a pass! We're tilting at windmills, since she's too popular to damage!" We were told to stop talking altogether about Palin, as if ignoring her would remove the spell she had cast on America. This Andrew Sullivan post must've been emailed to me two dozen times by panicked worrywarts. A few bad polls, and people seemed to be losing their minds and sense.

But we continued to focus on Palin. Republicans were busy trying to build a positive narrative about Palin -- the "hockey mom" who was so folksy she could "field dress a moose" and had "said no to the Bridge to Nowhere and other government waste" and was overflowing with "small town values". McCain had shot up in the polls because of Palin. Common sense dictated it would be hard to knock him back down as long as she consolidated her popularity. So we set out to build the negative narratives about Palin. This is stuff straight out of Taking on the System. I have a whole chapter on it, in fact.

So we focused heavily on Palin, and make no mistake, it's exactly that intense focus that has taken its toll on her numbers":

Approve Disapprove No Opinion
9/11: 52 35 13 +17
9/12: 51 37 12 +14
9/13: 49 40 11 +9
9/14: 47 42 11 +5
9/15: 47 43 10 +4
9/16: 45 44 11 +1
9/17: 44 45 11 -1
9/18: 42 46 11 -4

Click on the headline to read more  from the Daily Kos about Palins drop in the polls 

Race questions cast doubt on presidential polls

Can the polls be trusted? A central question about race and politics hasn't changed: Do white people lie — to pollsters or even to themselves — about their willingness to vote for black candidates? A good AP article posted on Yahoo News tries to answer this question.

The bottom line answer to these questions however is yes, whites do lie a little to pollsters when asked about their support for Africa-American candidates. The article does point out however that in this age of YouTube, voters are more racially tolerant then in previous years and are therefore more likely to tell the truth to pollsters when asked their voting preferences.

Click on the headline to read the article from Yahoo News