Listening to NPR the other day there was a passing comment regarding the relationship of the US economy to consumer confidence – about 2/3 of the US economy is directly connected to consumer spending. Not news in itself but with confidence in Bush at an all time low what could be the potential economic impact of Obama just winning the election. Some of the data is pretty surprising.
According to recent survey by the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs, 8% of respondents said they are likely to increase holiday spending because of the election of Sen. Obama. Although it does not say how much the spending is likely to improve, a little back-of-the-napkin math can help put this into perspective.
In the 2007 there was about $70b in holiday spending and according to Mastercard about 40% ($28b) was spent online. If 8% of people spent just 5% more that translates into an additional $280m. If it is more like 8% of people spending 25% more the number jumps to $1.4b, or an overall increase of 2%.
Another survey by the National Retail Federation projects that 2008 holiday spending will increase 1.9 percent over 2007 spending. In a nutshell, Obama could provide a lift in Holiday shopping that could double the expected growth in 2008 spending.
Even more impressive is the overall potential impact on the US and the global economy. Gallup daily tracking poll of consumer confidence in the US has shown a 9 point drop (80 to 71) in the people who view the economic outlook as “negative” just over the last week. Not significant? The negative score has not been at 71 since February.
According to a very interesting and well researched article by Seth Colter Walls the short answer is YES. Polling does not sample recently registered voters and typically the reach out to equal numbers of democrats and republicans causing data to be skewed because there are about eleven million more registered democrats in the United States.
Between hurricanes in the gulf and Palin’s constant stream of new disclosures, most have missed that for the first time 50% of voters polled by Gallup are now saying they will vote for Obama.
PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, finds Barack Obama leading the race for president with his highest share of support to date. Fully half of national registered voters now favor Obama for president, while 42% back John McCain.
It will be interesting to watch the impact of the GOP convention and all of the Palin news over the next few days to see if the positive trend for Obama is reversed. Clearly the initial Palin impact is not positive for the McCain ticket.
Lyndia Saad reports for Gallup.com:
PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 30 through Sept. 1, finds Barack Obama leading the race for president with his highest share of support to date. Fully half of national registered voters now favor Obama for president, while 42% back John McCain.
Prior to now, no more than 49% of registered voters supported Obama for president in Gallup Poll Daily tracking. Still, Obama's eight percentage point lead over McCain in the new poll falls one point shy of the lead he attained in late July after returning from a well-publicized trip to Europe and parts of the Middle East. At that time, Obama led by nine points, 49% to 40%.
McCain's 42% support is well below his 48% top support level, recorded in late April/early May. It is just slightly better than the 40% he received at several points in July, and the 41% favoring him just last week while the Democratic National Convention was underway. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
At 8%, the percentage of undecided voters is slightly lower than the 9% to 11% figures seen for most of August, and this is the lowest this figure has been since early June. This, in part, reflects movement of voters toward Obama over the course of the Democratic National Convention, a lead which has been sustained in subsequent days.
The field period for today's results includes Monday (Labor Day), when the scaled down Republican National Convention received limited media attention while most news coverage either focused on the hurricane hitting parts of the Gulf Coast or Monday's surprise announcement that the 17-year-old daughter of the soon to be Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is pregnant. The Republicans hope to start up a more traditional convention schedule today in St. Paul, with the goal of capturing the same kind of media and public attention the Democrats did last week in Denver. -- Lydia Saad
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109960/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Hits-50-First-Time.aspx
Nice to see the bump from the most recent Daily Tracking poll by Gallup.
Gallup Daily: Obama Moves Ahead, 48% to 42%
Couple of thoughts on Last two nights:
The GOP campaign is negative and as much as I had to say this, it's time to play their game.
While the Republican attack machine heats up, our campaign continues to hide in the background. I can't understand why we are not responding stronger in the media. Our campaign to often allowed Billary to drive the media news agenda and now we are allowing the Republicans to drive the news cycle again. The McCain camp puts out negative attack ad after negative attack this week and I haven't seen one solid response from the Obama camp. This is disturbing to me. Why aren't we seeing some responses. Barack your media team needs to be putting commercials out to combat these negative attacks and you need to get BACK ON MESSAGE. This campaign is slipping away and I think you need to REACT STRONGER!!
Another thing I want to discuss is that all you can see is how the Gallup tracking poll keeps showing that Obama has lost his lead. My question is who the hell is Gallup calling. I have been a registered voter for 14 years. I have had the same phone number since the 2004 disaster of an election and I even went on Gallup'w website and registered with all of my info. Still I have not gotten one polling phone call or email from Gallup. Makes me wonder who the hell are they polling??
Political Polling: consider your sources...
Here is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic policy adviser. "I used to say that Barack Obama raises taxes and John McCain cuts them, and I was convinced," he told me in a phone interview this week. "I stand corrected." - http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/07/i_stand_corrected.html
There's also this really odd USA Today/Gallup poll that shockingly, shows McCain ahead of Obama, 49 to 45. Hopefully this is an outlier, but it means we have more work to do. http://thepage.time.com/2008/07/28/gallup-ing-shocker/
Good news for Obama fans. Let's keep up the good work!
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109099/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Retains-Lead-48-41.aspx
In the past week or so since Senator Clinton decided to formally concede her campaign and encouraged her supporters to back Senator Obama in his, it seems that her followers have wisely obeyed her request, according to the latest Gallup poll, conducted from June 5th-9th.
Barack Obama has a 55% to 39% lead over Hillary Clinton in a new Gallup Poll.
Read more.
Carole
The hits keep coming! What a week! The Edwards endorsement... and now a 9-point lead in the Gallup Daily Tracking! Gallup Daily: Obama Opens 51/42 Lead But look at the Obama/McBush survey... we need to work on improving these numbers folks.
Gallup Poll today:
[boldface highlights by MW]
PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton in national Democratic preferences for the nomination, 50% to 42%, in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from April 20-22...With Obama currently leading Clinton nationally by eight points, it appears Pennsylvania is not a Democratic bellweather state.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106765/Gallup-Daily-Obama-50-Clinton-42-Nationally.aspx
Electability
Much of Clinton's current campaign positioning is based on her claim that she is more electable against John McCain next November. Analysis of Gallup data, however, does not find empirical justification for this claim at this point. In head-to-head matchups against presumptive Republican nominee McCain, Clinton and Obama perform almost exactly the same.
In Gallup's latest tracking of the general election, based on interviewing conducted April 18-22, McCain has a one-point lead over both Clinton and Obama. In the April 18-20 USA Today/Gallup poll, both Clinton and Obama were slightly -- but almost identically -- ahead of McCain among likely voters.
In neither instance is there any meaningful difference in how the two candidates stack up against McCain.
Clinton has argued that her wins in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio underscore her ability to win possible swing states in the general election next November. But a recent Gallup analysis of the vote patterns in states that were competitive in the 2004 election shows that Obama and Clinton perform exactly the same when paired against McCain in these swing states -- again giving no indication that either of the two Democratic candidates at this point is more "electable" than the other.
Furthermore, in that analysis, Obama did slightly better versus McCain than Clinton did in both reliably Democratic and reliably Republican states.
The demographic coalitions of support put together by the two candidates appear firmly in place by this point in the campaign, and it's likely that the winners in the states to come will be determined more by the composition of the population in those states than by any result of campaigning. At the same time, Clinton's argument that she is more electable in the fall does not appear at this juncture to have support in national data; both she and Obama fare equally well when pitted in polling against McCain.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106774/Day-After-Pennsylvania-Primary.aspx
Disapproval of George W. Bush set an all-time record for any President in the history of Gallup Polls:PRINCETON, NJ -- President George W. Bush's disapproval rating is at 69% -- which is not only the highest of the Bush administration, but the highest disapproval rating in Gallup Poll history.http://www.gallup.com/poll/106741/Bushs-69-Job-Disapproval-Rating-Highest-Gallup-History.aspx
Hello!
Well, MSNBC just announced the latest Gallup Poll results: Obama 52%-Clinton 43%!!! If you check out the blog I posted on 4/5, you will see that in just two days Senator Obama's lead is up three points!!! HRC's rating has dropped a point. There is now a 9% difference!!! AWESOME!!!
That's where Sen. Obama stands in the Gallup polls now. It's the highest he's ever been, and it's the largest margin that he's ever held over her! AWESOME!
Obama '08!
