An AP/Yahoo survey released yesterday asks repondents to play word association with the presidential candidates. Here are the results:
John McCain: 1. Old, 19 percent 2. Military service, 9 percent 3. Record, qualifications, 8 percent 4. Bush, 7 percent 5. Strength, 7 percent 6. Insider, politician, 7 percent 7. Iraq, terrorism, 6 percent 8. Honest, 5 percent 9. Republican, 5 percent 10. (tie) Moral/good and dishonest, 4 percent Barack Obama: 1. Outsider, change, 20 percent 2. Lack of experience, 13 percent 3. Dishonest, 9 percent 4. Inspiring, 8 percent 5. Liberal, 6 percent 6, 7 (tie). Obama's race, young, 6 percent 8. Not likable, 5 percent 9. Intelligent, 4 percent 10. Muslim, 3 percent
Ouch. So it's "change" vs. "old" by the numbers. And as many people cited "Bush" and "insider/politician" as cited "strength" for McCain. Meanwhile for Barack, the 6 percent who cited "race" might be an undercount, the 13 percent who said "inexperienced" is a clear red flag, and the 3 percent who said "Muslim" is proof that some people believe only what they want to, and that there is a small but impenetrable set of voters out there he will not be able to reach.
Meanwhile, Zogby does the Electoral College math (which isn't all that meaningful yet, but hey, it's fun!) Here's what Zogby found:
As the race for President passes the Independence Day holiday and heads toward the dog days of summer, Sen. Barack Obama holds a 44% to 38% lead over Sen. John McCain in the horserace contest, but also leads by a substantial margin in a state-by-state Electoral College tally, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows. The extensive national poll of of 46,274 likely voters also shows Libertarian candidate and former Congressman Bob Barr wins 6% support, eating into McCain’s needed conservative base of support. And in table form: Zogby’s Electoral College Count | 7-7-2008 | | Obama | 273 | | McCain | 160 | | Undecided | 105 |
As for Barr, and the demographics:
Bob Barr receives the support of 7% of voters who identify themselves as conservative or very conservative voters. Barr gets 43% of libertarians and 11% of independents. McCain’s support among conservatives is 74%. On the left, Ralph Nader gets less than 2% nationally. Obama has the support of 83% of Democrats, while McCain gets 75% of Republicans. Independents break 39% for Obama, compared with 31% who support McCain. For white voters, race doesn’t appear to be playing a significant factor. McCain leads Obama, 43%-39%, with Barr at 6%. Among black voters, Obama wins the vast majority of support.
Zogby is the conservative in the E.C. count. Other sites, including USA Election Polls, put Obama at around 309 votes to McCain's 218. RealClearPolitics scores it Obama 304, McCain 238. And FiveThirtyEight.com scores it Obama 308.9 and McCain 229.1.
| Labels: 2008 election, Barack Obama, John McCain, polls, presidential candidates |
