Strategic Vision: Obama up by 4

By Matt Friedman | September 19th, 2008 - 10:05am
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Yet another poll shows John McCain closing in on Barack Obama in The Garden State.

A Strategic Vision poll of 800 likely voters released today shows the Barack Obama/Joe Biden presidential ticket leading John McCain/Sarah Palin by a margin of 47%-43%.  

Today's poll comes on top of several recent polls that show McCain closing in on Obama, though September polls historically show Republicans closer in New Jersey.

The poll also shows Gov. Corzine with an anemic 38% approval rating, versus 53% who disapprove of his job performance. U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, meanwhile, has a 48% approval rating, while 36% disapprove of him job performance.

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg leads challenger Dick Zimmer by seven points in the U.S. Senate race. Lautenberg’s approval rating is 45%, while 38% of voters disapprove.

Every presidential and vice-presidential candidate has a favorable rating among New Jersey voters, though voters differ on how they feel each candidate will handle important issues.

Fourty-nine percent of voters trust Obama to handle the economy over the 40% who trust John McCain more on the issue. But McCain has an edge on the Iraq War, with 47% of New Jerseyans trusting him on the issue over the 43% who prefer Obama.

President Bush’s approval rating remains at rock bottom, at 20%, while an even lower percentage – 18% -- like the way he’s handling the economy. The congressional approval rating is even lower, however, at 14%.

The poll was conducted from September 14-16th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

More poll silliness

First of all, you can't compare the SV poll results to the Q-Pac results to the Bloomberg results. They all ask different questions phrased differently in different orders at different times. 47 percent in one poll is not the same as 47 percent in another.

The only other poll SV has done in NJ is from July 11-13 and asked the Presidential question at the end, whereas the poll from this week asked the question up front.

The question in July was also phrased quite differently, and did not include the VP picks.

But in that poll in July Obama had the same 47 percent as Obama/Biden have and McCain had 38 percent.

So the SV polls are different, but they are asking different questions at different times. Comparing them as two identical columns is simply not accurate.

Polls

Rasmussen has Obama up by 13 points. Everything considered, RCP averages Obama's lead at 6.5 points which I think is accurate for the most part. It's probably somewhere within the six to eight point range.

It's interesting to see how the states are breaking. Virginia is starting to break for McCain which is encouraging and so are North Carolina and Florida.

All in all, I think Obama might turn New Mexico and Iowa blue but the rest of the electoral map will remain unchanged.

"For his sake, I hope Joe Biden got that VP thing in writing!"- Rudy Giuliani

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