A Late Wave?

by Steve Soto

Is Obama benefitting from a late wave over the weekend? Gallup’s poll shows him now out to a ten-point lead amongst likely voters in both of their LV models, with McCain falling back to 42%.

Barack Obama leads John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviewing conducted Wednesday through Friday by an identical 52% to 42% margin among both traditional likely voters and expanded likely voters. Obama leads by a similar 52% to 41% margin among all registered voters.

And about the chances that this could be a late-breaking wave washing over the GOP?

The average Obama lead over McCain among traditional likely voters since Oct. 6 has been five points, but that lead has expanded over the last several day's reports, and Obama's current 52-42% lead among this group is the largest to date.

And has the larger turnout and early voting played a large part in this? Yes.

Gallup has increased its estimate of turnout in the election slightly to 64% (from the previous 60%), based on internal calculations which point toward the higher turnout number, and this 64% estimate is reflected in the traditional likely voter calculations.

Gallup's interviewing conducted Wednesday through Friday shows that 27% of registered voters who plan to vote have already voted. The trend in early voting has trended consistently upward on a day to day basis, moving from 7% of registered voters, who had already voted during the period of Oct. 17-19, to the current estimate of 27%. Another 8% of registered voters still indicate that they plan on voting before Election Day itself. The vote choices of these early voters -- all of whom are included in the likely voter pool since they are definite voters -- skew more toward Barack Obama than the sample average. Thus, more and more of these Obama-oriented voters' choices are being "locked in" to the likely voter pool through early voting, benefiting Obama.

A 64% turnout? If true, that would be the largest turnout in a century.

Update (Sunday morning): As CalPolJ said, Zogby's daily tracking poll is back to showing Obama with a 5.7 point lead amongst likely voters, with Friday's one-day bump for McCain now gone, and a ten-point lead for Obama in the Saturday daily numbers.

Obama has consolidated his lead over McCain. His single day lead today was back to 52%-42%. He leads by 10 among independents and has solidified his base. He leads among Hispanics by38 points, African Americans by 88, 18-24 year olds by 36, 18-29 year olds by 25, 25-34 year olds by 16, women by 8, and men by 3. He has a 17 point lead among those who have already voted, 22 by those who have registered to vote in the past 6 months, Moderates by 34, Catholics by 10. He even receives 21% support among Conservatives.

He even manages to take a shot at right wing bloggers who made too much of the one-day bump.