Obama's Primary Toll; McCain's Politics Problem

Pew's latest People-Press mega-survey (1,505 adults from May 21-25) has much to dive into.

OBAMA: THE TOLL FROM THE PRIMARY

The primary has taken a toll worthy of the Triborough bridge as even Democrats are now beginning to concede: about half believe that the contest has been going on for too long. Obama has trouble with white women; in March, nearly 60% of women who supported Hillary Clinton had a favorable view of Obama; that figure is down to 43% today. About 44% of Clinton supporters don't like Obama, way up from 26% in December of 2007. Roundabout two-thirds of the party are confident that it will unite around Obama; a third are skeptical. (Don't fret, Dems: only 62% of Republicans expect their party to unite around John McCain.)

More troubling for Obamaniacs: Obama's favorability ratings among independents is down 13 percentage points, and he does not receive the same support from Democrats than John McCain does from Republicans, although the pool of Democrats is much larger and McCain has not faced a true Republican opponent since March. Pew finds that a quarter of whites without college degrees say that their dislike of Barack Obama is personal, rather than political; (18% say it is both personal AND political).

MCCAIN AND INDEPENDENTS

As McCain has more fully embraced the identity of a true-red Republican, the percentage of voters who don't like his politics has climbed; they still have a favorable view of his character. Much of the decline comes from Democrats; that's balanced out with his improvement among Republican; he is slightly less popular among independents that he was, but the rate of decline has slowed. Nearly half of all independents believe that McCain represents a break, a change, from President Bush. (Less than 30% of Republicans are happy with the direction of the country.) McCain now leads by eight points on independents; Obama led among them in April; McCain led among them in March. This is a temporary trend.

Potentially worrisome to Arlington will be news that McCain's fav/unfav rating is a positive three (I originally and incorrectly wrote that the ratio was -3); Obama still has a majority fav rating of positive 9.

THE ISSUES

The usual pattern holds: Democrats hold overwhelming advantages on issues, from the economy to health care to energy to social issues. John McCain is seen as being slightly better on immigration and taxes, while the candidates are essentially tied on the Iraq question (although more Americans favor Obama's solutions). McCain's foreign policy is seen by a slim majority (51%) as "just right," while 16% don't think it's tough enough -- this suggests that efforts to link him to President Bush on foreign policy are failing. There is much more uncertainty about Obama's foreign policy approach.

WHY WE'RE VOTING

The percentage of folks who say they're voting for Obama because they like him (versus against McCain) is 75%; that's roughly the same percentage who, in 2004, said they were voting for George W. Bush and not against John Kerry. The 42% of people who don't like Barack Obama generally distrust his political views; 16% said they don't like the "kind of person he is," perhaps a cover for latent racism, or perhaps the result of percieved elitism.