Anyway You Look At It, Obama Is In Trouble

No Disproportionate Shift in White Women's Preferences

4-Point shift toward McCain appears about average

by Frank Newport, Jeffrey M. Jones, and Lydia Saad

Just before the Democratic National Convention (in Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviewing from Aug. 20-22), white women broke 47% to 40% in favor of McCain over Obama. In interviewing from Sept. 5-8, after both conventions were completed, white women's margin of support for McCain over Obama edged up modestly to 51% to 40%. This represents a gain of four percentage points for McCain among white women and no change in their support for Obama.

Among white men, the change in preference for McCain was very similar to the change among white women, coupled with a slight loss of support for Obama. White men went from 56% to 36% support for McCain over Obama to a 59% to 34% split now.

More generally, the data show that McCain gained four points among all white voters (both men and women), and Obama lost one point.

(For all voters, regardless of race or gender, the race shifted from a 46% to 44% advantage for Obama in Aug. 20-22 polling to a 49% to 44% advantage for McCain after the conventions. That's a gain of five points for McCain and a loss of two for Obama.)

In short, it appears that the impact of the two conventions was not materially different for white women than it was for white men, and neither group's shifts were substantially different than the changes among the overall electorate. Among all groups, McCain gained during the time period encompassing the two conventions, and Obama was roughly stable.

Despite the intense focus on the potential impact on white women of McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, the Gallup data do not show that to this point white women have been significantly different in their response to the convention period than has the average voter. [More]

It's no wonder Obama and his people are changing tactics. They look at the polls and all they see is bad news. Look for more smears, more name-calling and a ton more sexism from the Obama camp.