Obama Leading In Latest Gallup National Tracking Poll -- Wright Controversy Had No Major Impact
Posted by Ashish on 03.22.2008
Poll shows Obama back to pre-Wright levels...
After over a week of speculation by the mainstream media over whether the Rev. Wright "scandal" would wreck Barack Obama's campaign, the numbers are in. The result? It won't.
Obama took a hit in national polls earlier in the week, but as I stated a few days ago, the hit was short term and he is now once again leading in Gallup's national tracking poll.
As you can see, Obama is now back to more or less the exact same lead he had prior to the Wright story breaking (the Wright story broke on the night 14th/15th and Obama led 48-45 on the 15th). He suffered a bit of a drop for a few days and is now back to where he started, leading 48-45. It'll be interesting to see the trend in the coming days. Obama has hit the 50% mark only once so far. And while national polls are worthless now in terms of predicting who will win upcoming states, they are an important tool to determine the national perception of candidates as well as how the general public reacts to the various storylines of the campaign. If Richardson's endorsement has any impact on actual voters (and I predict it won't), it should start showing up in this tracking poll on Monday, though any positive movement for Obama will likely have more to do with the Wright story fading and the continued viral distribution of his race speech impacting new people than it would Richardson's endorsement (endorsements this year have usually had no impact at all on polls).
It's hard to make any sort of convincing case that the Wright situation is a "scandal ruining the Obama campaign" when the polls show that it had a minor short-term impact that has already faded. Obama's numbers DID drop after the controversy broke (he fell as low as 42% in the graph above), but instead of continuing to drop like the media expected, they slowed, then stopped (at 42%), and now have climbed back up again to the same levels he was at prior to the Wright story breaking (48%).
But the really interesting news comes from the polls regarding what Americans thought of the Wright controversy and of Obama's race speech, and how all of them say more or less the same thing -- the vast majority of people didn't care about the Wright situation enough to impact who they prefer. I reported on the FOX News poll from a few days ago already but here is the latest one...
CBS poll:
- 69% of those who saw or heard about the speech said Obama did a good job.
- 71% said Obama did a good job explaining the Wright situation.
- 70% said the Wright controversy has had no impact on who they support. Out of the remaining 30%, 14% actually said that the situation has made them MORE LIKELY to support Obama.
We saw Bill Richardson's reaction to the speech, as it was apparently enough to motivate him to finally endorse Obama despite his long history with the Clintons. And finally, we're beginning to see a few responsible members of the mainstream media take some of their colleagues to task about the poor job they have done in the past week accurately reporting the facts. I suspect there is a major media backlash brewing right now that will ultimately end up boosting Obama, just like it boosted Clinton prior to New Hampshire when the media unfairly started to attack her. It works both ways, and the national tracking polls are showing that people aren't buying into media fabrication, aren't buying into the Wright "scandal" as being significant, and viewed Obama's speech positively.
somewhere Pat Buchanan is choking on his chicken bone.
Posted By: Guest#0158 (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 02:43 PM
voters seem a lot smarter this time around. i figured this pastor stuff would sink obama for sure. guess not.
Posted By: shergin (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 02:46 PM
Ashish, please stop being so biased. Enough of this cheerleading for Obama.
Posted By: Michael (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 02:49 PM
i don't want to pick a fight so don't take it as such, but how is he "cheerleading" for obama? all he did is use factual numbers to disprove an incorrect media narrative. that's good journalism. cheerleading is trying to prove a point without any numbers or proof to back it up. if you have a point you want to make that goes against the point ashish made, post a comment with numbers backing up what you want to say.
Posted By: just a thought... (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 02:59 PM
The media narrative is that Obama's speech was one of the greatest speeches ever. That's the false narrative that is not taken up in this story. That is the false narrative that has paid off so well in the public opinion polls. The media is overwhelmingly pro-Obama. They sat on the Wright story. They were forced to report it because Wright's comments went viral. They tamped it back down with the speech. All this is transparent - if you aren't blinded by Obama mania or trying to set up the Democrats for defeat in November.
Posted By: Andrew (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 03:46 PM
"somewhere Pat Buchanan is choking on his chicken bone."
LOL!
Posted By: JoAnn (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 04:38 PM
Andrew lives in that parallel universe where Spock is evil and has a goatee. The media narrative was NOT "Obama's speech was one of the greatest speeches
ever" (although it SHOULD have been). If you were watching any pundit on any of the mainstream news networks, you would have seen the media narrative was "blah blah let's show that crazy preacher footage again". It's only now that the narrative is changing since the media is SLOWLY figuring out that the american people aren't as stupid as they thought and are getting wise to the mainstream media's blatant attempts to repeatedly hijack the direction of this election.
Posted By: poffo316 (Guest) on March 22, 2008 at 10:32 PM
I live in Pa, he pretty much killed himself with the Pastor controversy. Espically with a state that has Rendell cheerleading for Hillary, so he can get the hell out of here like Tom Ridge. What do expect from a Philly guy, anyway. I can't believe I voted for that guy. The sad part is his speech was a great speech. It really did get to the heart of race in America. Its just Replublicans or Hillanazis saying its not a great speech, because Hillary and McCain don't have the stones to make a speech like that. Hillary is relaying on her and hubby making a bunch of Democrates in the past to stay in this thing even though she is mathamatically dead in the water. McCain didn't even get 50% in most of the primaries he won, he barly got 40%. So what does that say for him?
Unfortuantly, Obama is now facing the reality of running as a Democrate in the conservative media movment. Evey mistake he has made, every enemy he knows or doesn't even know will be out to get him and all of it will be caught in the whirlwind of Fox News, pundits on every political show with their owin interest and a talk radio system set-up by old men and religious nuts have total control. He more than anyone faces the uphill battle and will probably lose the nomination due to back door deals and America's need to create people and then tear them a part piece by piece.
Posted By: AFan (Registered) on March 22, 2008 at 11:03 PM
I still think Ashish is burying the lead in these polling numbers. It's not so much about the Democratic nomination (which, as he points out, is effectively over unless the Democrats feel like setting off a civil war within the party). The Wright story isn't nearly as big a deal to Democrats as to Republicans, and more importantly, Independents. Losing Republicans isn't a big deal because Obama wasn't really counting on them to begin with, but he can't afford to lose the Independents that also like McCain. Ashish just showed the latest polls for the Democratic race, but they ran polls for the general election matchups, too, and they're here:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/105529/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Edges-Ahead-Clint on.aspx
As you can see, McCain has a two-point edge over Obama, and that's been holding pretty steady (though it has narrowed slightly), unlike the Clinton matchup with Obama. And that's just one poll. If you look at Rasmussen's latest poll, for example, McCain is up by 8 points (though that poll has consistently shown McCain up or at least tied with Obama for a long time).
Anyway, the point is that it is important to see how the Wright debacle and Obama's failure to properly distance himself from Wright will affect what happens in the general election, not the Democratic nomination. That's still a long ways away, and there's plenty of time for Obama to turn things around (or for McCain to fall flat).
But to say that the Wright story has no impact just isn't true. Maybe with the Democrats it's not, but the Democrats alone are not going to decide who's going to be the next president. When the story first broke, I thought it was vital for Obama to cut Wright off for the sake of his political future. I'm absolutely stunned that he didn't do that (comparing Wright to a relative is ridiculous because he's not, you know, a relative), and he's paying for it now. Whether it costs him in November remains to be seen.
Posted By: John (Guest) on March 23, 2008 at 04:00 AM
ok a few things, as far the mainstream media, ashish must not payed attetion to chris matthews, who basically had an on-air orgy and comparing this speech to lincoln or campebell brown or anderson cooper who also had on-air orgies.
2nd if obama was a stand up guy then why did he disinvite wright from his campaign kick-off last year, and this was after the 9/11 comments by wright.
3rd as far as the footage goes blame the chruch, as there the ones who distributed it, u don't have to go to you tube or it wasn't the evil vast right-wing conspiracy, no it was the trinity united church who sells the dvd's in there church. oh and one more thing where is media matters going after obama for throwing his white grandmother under the bus, you know the same media matters that took Bill O'Reilly out of context when he made the same comments about his grandma, oh that's right i forgot Obama isn't a racist which is what they brand anyone who wants to debate the matter and will also throw juan williams under the bus as well
Posted By: coby preimesberger (Guest) on March 23, 2008 at 04:22 AM
Yo Michael, shut up. This isn't cheerleading for Obama, this is an anlysis of poll results. And even if Ashish wanted to, he could, because it's his damn site. Show some respect. If you want to sink his articles, bring up some of your hard facts and evidence. Or is it too hard for you?
Posted By: Finn (Guest) on March 23, 2008 at 08:59 AM
Look, I think Ashish is a very intelligent person and a skilled writer. However, reading his articles (and noting what gets kept on the front page, pictures used, etc.) that he supports Obama.
That's fine, he owns the website and is allowed to post whatever he wants. I tend to agree with him even. I am just aware, reading his articles, that his news is somewhat editorialized. That's perfectly fine, though. It's not a problem so long as you're aware of it and think for yourself, ok?
Posted By: Torad (Guest) on March 23, 2008 at 05:27 PM
STAY CURRENT