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Indies breaking hard for McCain

Submitted by Soren Dayton on Tue, 09/09/2008 - 09:20
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Jerome Armstrong notes another phenomenon in the polling. Indies are breaking hard for John McCain. First, he notes this picture from Gallup:

Then notes the same pattern in other polls:

CBS: McCain is ahead by 55-25 among Independents.

Hotline: McCain is ahead by 45-32, among Independents.

Here, there are two theories. The first is that these are real independents. The second is that these are disaffected Republicans ("rehab Republicans" in the McCain campiagn's schema of target voters). These would be Republicans who disaffiliated from the GOP but like McCain and, perhaps, Palin. If the second theory holds, we probably will keep these voters. If the second is going on, we won't know for a little while.

But Jerome closes on an important point:

Under this sort of scenario, the only possible way Obama could be ahead, or tied, is if party ID dramatically favors Democrats on election day. It hasn't in any of the recent election years.

 

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Comments

Exactly!

Submitted by Kristen Soltis on Tue, 09/09/2008 - 16:52.

I just had similar remarks over at Pollster.com.  If you go even deeper into polls like the most recent CBS poll, nearly 43% of independents saw McCains speech AND became more likely to vote for him.  Only 29% of independents did the same of Obamas.  Similarly, more Independents believe that McCain/Palin can bring true change to Washington than can Obama/Biden.   The notion that the McCain bounce in the polls is due to the base "coming home" is somewhat dubious.   The "rehab Republicans" idea is interesting, but is somewhat undermined by the second point you mention, that party ID is static.

Oddly enough, that's the other piece I did for Pollster.com.  I fall into the camp that says party ID is much more like a demographic than a question response, and as such, the nation's partisan makeup doesn't shift radically overnight.  It's a long, slow, steady process. 

At any rate, great post!