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Obama hits 50% mark in Gallup poll

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-03 10:16

Barack Obama met the 50 percent threshold for the first time Tuesday in the Gallup daily tracking poll, a symbolic hurdle that until now had eluded the Democratic nominee.

US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-IL) delivers a Labor Day speech at a campaign stop at the Marcus Ampitheather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin September 1, 2008. [Agencies]

The Gallup daily tracking poll has found that since the conclusion of the Democratic convention, Obama has risen 5 percentage points in the polls and now leads John McCain 50 percent to 42 percent. That represents a positive turn for Obama, after a couple of days in which he appeared to have peaked at the 49 percent mark while McCain was showing slight improvements.

The survey indicates that Obama’s overall post-Democratic National Convention bounce now appears to be roughly at par with the norm of past conventions. Though smaller than several of the sizable bounces of recent decades, the new polling suggests that perhaps the Democratic convention bounce has yet to subside.

While an improvement from 49 percent to 50 percent is statistically insignificant, the 50 percent mark holds significance for a party seeking to win its first majority since 1976, when Jimmy Carter won with 50.1 percent.

Polling will likely remain in flux until early next week, after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention. On Saturday, Gallup reported Obama was ahead by 8 percentage points. By Monday, that lead had shrunk to 5 points. Today it returned to 8.

Obama and McCain were evenly split at 45 percent prior to the Democratic convention, according to Gallup. Should Obama maintain a 5-point bounce in the polls, that would meet the 5- to 6-point norm earned by a typical party nominee, by Gallup’s measure, since 1964.

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That also means, however, that Obama’s historic acceptance speech before more than 80,000 people at Invesco Field in Denver Thursday night, a political event seen by about 40 million television viewers, has not vaulted him above the norm of past nominees.

But Obama now has his firmest political footing of the campaign, according to the polls. Daily tracking polls by Gallup and Rasmussen Reports demonstrate that Obama has taken his greatest lead since the beginning of the general election in June when Obama clinched the Democratic nomination.

Rasmussen also recorded an uptick in Obama’s standing on Tuesday, and he now leads McCain 51 percent to 45 percent.

CBS News reported Monday that Obama is ahead in its poll, 48 percent to 40 percent, a 3-point increase in Obama’s standing compared with its poll prior to the Democratic convention.