Polls: Obama or McCain?

According to the Los Angeles Newspaper, if the U.S. presidential Elections were now, Barack Obama would beat John McCain by 15 percentage points. According to the Gallup, it is not possible to determine who would win because the two candidates are actually tied. Other polls are in the middle: the Rasmussen Reports poll gives Obama a 4 point advantage, the ABC-Washington Post, 4 points, and the NBC-Wall Street Journal, 6 points.

What are the explanations for these differences? The particularities of each poll. The Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg News show that 39% of the population consider themselves Democrats and 22% consider themselves Republicans, while the Rasmussen Reports poll was conducted with a composition of 41% democrats and 32% republicans.

The topic of political affiliation is outlined as decisive because it demonstrates a changing tendency in relation with past elections, while aspects such as themes stay the same. The polls show a sort of tie between the political themes of the two candidates. Obama doubles McCain between voters focused on the economy, and McCain does the same against Obama between voters worried about national security.

However unlike the 2004 presidential elections, where the political affiliation was basically even, the tendency now is clearly favoring the Democratic candidate. According to polls like the LA Times, with 18 points, which appears too high, and the 9 point lead according to the Rasmussen Reports.

The differences, the LA Times presumes are due to party affiliation fluctuation manifesting in each poll, while the Rasmussen Reports assume that it does not change abruptly due to affiliation, and designs polls over a monthly party distribution tracking base.

In whichever case, for McCain to win he needs Independent votes desperately, who represent around 27% of the electorate, because President Bushes efforts to increase the participation of the Republican Party by means of the ultra polarization of the north American society returned him right back to his party like a boomerang. McCain recently cited a poll in which he appears 16 points over his party, thanks to the support of independents.

For that reason he came to Colombia. Matters such as the Obama opposition and the approval of TLC magnify two aspects of the Democratic Party that appall independent voters: the lack of strength in foreign policy, in this case the support of President Uribe against Hugo Chavez and the FARC, and the submission before labor unions, in this case against free trade. In spite of the tendency of the pendulum to favor the democrats, which gives Obama an advantage, the sectors in the middle, that consider themselves independents and represent a third of the electorate, are indomitable. A couple of years ago, during the splendor of Bush’s anti-terrorism, it seemed that the Republicans had won over a significant part of the center, and a couple of months ago, only because of Bush, they had lost it completely. Today McCain is flipping a coin in the air.