McCain Now Polling Ahead of Obamessiah

For the second straight day the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll has McCain up by 1, and even Zogby is now showing McCain with a slight lead:

ATV/Zogby Poll Toss-Up! McCain 42%, Obama 41% as Undecided Voters Increase

Obama loses support among his strongest demographic groups


UTICA, New York – A national Associated TV/Zogby International telephone poll of 1,011 likely voters conducted July 31-Aug. 1 finds Republican Sen. John McCain taking a razor-thin 42%-41% lead over Democrat Sen. Barack Obama in the race for the U.S. presidency.

The margin between the candidates is statistically insignificant, but demonstrates a notable turn-around from the Reuters/Zogby poll of July 7-9 that showed Obama ahead, 46%-36% in a four-way match-up that included Libertarian candidate Bob Barr of Georgia and liberal independent candidate Ralph Nader. McCain made significant gains at Obama’s expense among some of what had been Obama’s strongest demographic groups. For example:

-McCain gained 20% and Obama lost 16% among voters ages 18-29. Obama still leads that group, 49%-38%.
-Among women, McCain closed 10 points on Obama, who still leads by a 43%-38% margin.
-Obama has lost what was an 11% lead among Independents. He and McCain are now tied.
-Obama had some slippage among Democrats, dropping from 83% to 74%.
-Obama’s support among single voters dropped by 19%, and he now leads McCain, 51%-37%.
-Even with African-Americans and Hispanics, Obama shows smaller margins.

All this coming just days after the Obamessiah's triumphant World Apology Tour. Charles Krauthammer was right - history shows us that having 200,000 Germans chanting your name in a Berlin rally doesn't usually turn out well.

It's beginning to look like the Obamessiah peaked way too early. In fact, if you look at the primary results from March on he peaked back on Super Tuesday in February, because Hillary beat him like a drum all over the country after that, but the mathematics of the Dem nominating formula kept him alive.

And what about the vaunted "youth vote" that's supposed to be an important part of his core supporters? He's losing those too, and for the most part that doesn't matter because they won't show up on election day anyway.

My favorite story about the youth vote comes from 2000 when actor Ben Affleck, whose career effectively died with Gigli and Pearl Harbor, was enlisted by Al Gore to drum up the youth vote in rallies around the country. Shortly after election day and while the Florida recount was going on it was learned that Affleck himself didn't bother to vote. Anytime a pundit tells you a candidate can win because he'll "energize the youth vote", forget it.