White House ’08: Obama above 50 percent in two polls

Analysis by Chris Graham
[email protected]

Hillary Clinton voters once uncertain about Barack Obama’s readiness to be president are now moving solidly into the Obama camp, pushing Obama above 50 percent in two national polls.

Obama stood at 51 percent in today’s daily tracking poll from Rasmussen Reports and at 50 percent in the daily tracking poll from Gallup, where Obama had an eight-point lead over John McCain. McCain trailed Obama 51 percent-to-45 percent in the Rasmussen polling.

Both polling organizations attributed the gain by Obama, who had been running in the mid-40s for several weeks heading into last week’s Democratic National Convention, to his increased support from Democrats. Gallup broke the figures down even more to examine the much-discussed Hillary factor. A pre-convention Gallup poll had only 47 percent of former Clinton supporters saying that they were certain to vote for Obama in the general election. The first significant post-convention polling done by Gallup has 65 percent of Clinton backers now saying that they are certain that they will vote for Obama, a gain of 18 percentage points among the subgroup that accounts for the bulk of Obama’s recent gains overall.

Gallup also had Obama gaining among voters who had previously supported his candidacy in the Democratic Party nomination season. Eighty percent of Obama voters had indicated pre-convention that they were certain that they would vote for Obama in November. Post-convention, that figure is up to 87 percent, suggesting that the Democratic National Convention solidified party unity heading into the fall campaign.