Gallup: Candidate Support Trends

I was checking the latest Gallup election polls earlier today and I discovered a really interesting feature on their website: election trends in candidate support based on various groups, based on weekly aggregates of registered voters, starting in the summer months (some in June, some in August) and ending on the week of October 5 (as of today, October 10). There are 16 different groupings, but I selected the groups that interest me the most to discuss in this blog.

Overall Candidate Support
Starting the week of June 9-15 2008, Gallup lists the weekly aggregate of all registered voters in support of either Barack Obama or John McCain. From June-October, the percentages in favor of either candidate have been extremely close, with Obama in the lead for a majority of the weeks. Two exceptions: August 18-24, both candidates were tied at 45%; September 8-14, McCain led Obama 47% to 45%. Currently, Obama leads McCain 49% to 43%.

"Red," "Purple," and "Blue" States
No surprise here: from June-October, Red states offered more support for McCain and Blue states offered more support for Obama. Additionally, the highest percentage in favor of McCain from Red states has been 56% (Sept 8-14), and the highest percentage in favor of Obama from Blue states has been 57% (Sept 15-21; Sept 29-Oct 5). The most important and intriguing states here are the Purple, "swing" states - those that will most likely decide the election. From June-October, Purple states have consistently favored Obama to McCain. The Purple state percentages in support of either candidate have always been very close though; as close as 46% favoring Obama and 45% favoring McCain (Sept 1-7), and as distant as 51% for Obama and 41% for McCain (Sept 22-28). Currently, Obama leads McCain 50% to 41% in Purple states, 57% to 35% in Blue states, and McCain leads Obama 50% to 42% in Red states.
The numbers would probably be a bit more interesting if the Purple states were broken down individually to illustrate their biases in addition to the number of electoral votes held by each state... But the intrigue is half the fun.

Age
Starting August 4, Gallup reported weekly aggregates of candidate support based on age, broken down into 4 groups: 18-29 years old, 30-49 years old, 50-64 years old, and 65 years or older. The youngest age group overwhelmingly prefers Obama to McCain; during Aug 4-10, they preferred Obama to McCain 59% to 30% - that has been the largest lead in this age bracket so far, with the closest percentages at 55% and 40% (favoring Obama). Voters older than 65 tend to favor McCain, with the largest margin at 8 percentage points (Aug 4-10, 47% to 39%; Aug 11-17, 46% to 38%). However, after the first 2 weeks of polls, Obama gained popularity with the oldest voting crowd, and he's currently favored in this age group at 45% to 44% (he also came in above McCain at 44% to 43% Aug 25-31).
The 2 middle age groups were almost always evenly split between the 2 candidates.
Currently, 18-29 year olds prefer Obama 60% to 34%; 30-49 year olds prefer Obama 50% to 44%; 50-64 year olds prefer Obama 47% to 45%; and 65+ year olds prefer Obama 45% to 44%.

Education
Gallup created 4 groups based on voters' education levels: high school or less, some college, college graduate and postgraduate education. Given this information, we can each gather our own interpretation of each group; for the purposes of my analysis I'm going to generalize college graduates and postgraduate education as the more intelligent voters (I know it's an over generalization, but its based on pretty legit standards). Since Aug 4-10, Obama has been strongly favored each week by voters with postgraduate educational experience (leading by as many as 21 percentage points); Obama and McCain have been pretty equally favored among college graduates (McCain was favored 50% to 44% Sept 1-7 and 51% to 44% Sept 8-14 with the highest percentage point differences; the remaining weekly aggregates have been mostly tied or favoring one candidate by only 1 or 2 percentage points). Currently, voters from each educational group prefer Obama; high school or less at 47% to 43%, some college at 48% to 44%, college graduates at 49% to 47% and postgraduate education-experienced voters at 59% to 38%.


Gender
Pretty self-explanatory: Gallup gathered weekly aggregates from June-October showing candidate preference sorted by gender. Each week, female voters have favored Obama (by as many as 16 percentage points and by as few as 8 percentage points). All weeks but one (in which there was a 46% tie), males favored McCain (by as many as 11 percentage points and by as few as 2 percentage points). Currently, women favor Obama 53% to 39% and men favor McCain 47% to 45%.


Political Party
From June-October, Gallup recorded weekly aggregates of registered Republican, Democrat and Independent voters' preferences for either candidate. Again, NO SURPRISE that Republicans favor McCain every week and that Democrats favor Obama. Interestingly, as many as 14% of Democrats favored McCain Aug 18-24 (while 78% preferred Obama) and as many as 11% of Republicans favored Obama 3 different weeks: June 16-22, July 7-13, July 14-20 (while 85%, 84%, and 83% favored McCain, respectively). The coveted Independent vote has been pretty close, favoring Obama for 9 weeks and McCain for 7 weeks, and a 42% tie one week. Currently, Democrats favor Obama 87% to 8%, Republicans favor McCain 88% to 9%, and Independents favor Obama 44% to 42%.

Political Party and Ideology
This grouping simply elaborates on the following grouping, creating 6 different groups of voters based on the aforementioned political parties: liberal Democrats, moderate Democrats, conservative Democrats, pure Independents, liberal/moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans. Since Aug 4-10, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans obviously favored their respective candidates (with numbers like 96% to 2%), and even the moderate to conservative Democrats strongly favored Obama, while the liberal/moderate Republicans strongly favored McCain (most of these percentages were split roughly 75% to 20% in favor of the party's candidate). The pure Independents had the most interesting percentages; each week, except one, from Aug-October, they favored McCain (by as many as 14 percentage points and by as little as 2). Aug 25-31, pure Independents favored Obama by 1 percentage point. It's important to note, however, that the pure Independent percentages were never lower than 22% and never higher than 38% (basically, not very exciting in either direction). Currently, pure Independents favor McCain 32% to 23%; liberal Democrats favor Obama 96% to 2%, moderate Democrats favor Obama 86% to 8%, conservative Democrats favor Obama 75% to 16%; liberal/moderate Republicans favor McCain 76% to 19%, and conservative Republicans favor McCain 94% t0 4%.

Race
From June-October, supporters of each candidate were broken down into 3 racial groups: non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic. For the non-Hispanic black group, it's no contest - the percentages strongly prefer Obama. Non-Hispanic whites tend to favor McCain, typically at about 50% to 30%. Hispanic voters tend to favor Obama, from roughly 50-60% to 30%. Currently, non-Hispanic white voters favor McCain 50% to 42%, non-Hispanic black voters prefer Obama 89% t0 2%, and Hispanic voters prefer Obama 64% to 26%.

So... Here's what I make of all of that information:
Obama is favored to McCain by the following groups - Democrats, Blue states, Purple states, the 18-29 age bracket, women, those who have received some sort of higher education (especially postgraduate studies), non-Hispanic black voters, and Hispanic voters. McCain is favored to Obama by the following groups - Republicans, Red states, the 65 years and older age bracket, men, and non-Hispanic white voters.
Although McCain has generally been the favored candidate for older voters, he's slipping from that position as the campaigns progress. Additionally, the favor shown toward McCain by this age group is nowhere near the amount of favor shown for Obama by the youngest voting group; since the middle 2 age groups are too close to show any kind of preference, this massive lead by Obama is clutch... Especially if you take into account the number of expected young voters in this election. This basically leaves McCain with nothing more than the obvious votes: non-Hispanic white, male, Republican voters living in Red states. Oh, as far as education goes... I just wanted to point out that people who are well-educated prefer Obama. Yes, I am being snide, condescending, and contemptuous by claiming my own preference to be that of the intellectually elite - but that's just the way I am, and I'm fully aware of it.

After all of this analysis though, it sucks to admit that polls really aren't always accurate tools for predicting the outcome of an election. In my lifetime I've seen the candidate who lost the popular vote elected into the presidency, AND I've seen an election scandal involving unfair voting practices that victimized certain voting groups, thus altering the outcome of the popular election (NO SHOCK that both dirty elections involved the same candidate - George W. Bush the Horrible). I've kinda been trained to expect the worse from the electoral system of our government because I've only been let down by it, so I refuse to get my hopes up in any way based on the Gallup poll information. However, it makes me happy to see that many people are waking up and realizing that our country stopped functioning a while ago, and some changes may be necessary in order to restore America with order, success, and pride. Things change - this world is not the same world it was 10 years ago, 10 months ago, 10 weeks ago, and even 10 days ago. If the world around us is changing, we need to change with it, and we need a leader who can make that happen.

Gallup.com Election 2008 Coverage

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Remember to watch the 3rd and final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain on October 15.