Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Email to a Friend

Sometimes in the day-to-day tracking of a Presidential race, it’s hard to separate statistical noise from larger trends.

A review of week-by-week results from the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows that the race between Barack Obama and John McCain has been remarkably stable. But, it is a bit closer now than in the days shortly after Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race.

For the first five weeks after clinching the nomination, Obama was at 46% support each week and at 49% with leaners. Over the last four weeks, his support has been down a couple of points in both measures.

The reverse was true for McCain. He was at 40% in the poll for the first five weeks after his opponent clinched the nomination (generally at 44% with leaners). Since then, the presumptive Republican nominee has done a bit better. His support grew to the highest level yet recorded for the week ending August 3. It will be interesting to see if McCain can maintain that level of support as the Democratic National Convention approaches.

The bottom line is that Obama’s lead has declined from the 5-6 point range for the first five weeks and has fallen to the 1-3 point range for the past four weeks.

Note: Week of July 27 includes the two-day"Berlin Bounce"

Full week tracking polls are based upon interviews with 7,000 Likely Voters. In addition to the large sample size, the results are more stable due to the fact that there is no “day-of-week” polling bias in the mix (see earlier analysis showing limited day-of-week bias in the daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Beginning this weekend, Rasmussen Reports Premium Members will receive daily updates of the seven-day tracking poll results, including demographic breakdowns.