Mr. Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running for a first term in the last 28 years of Times/CBS polls.
Obama fav/unfav 53/33
McCain fav/unfav 36/45
How do you like McCain’s chances of mounting a successful negative campaign in the teeth of those numbers? And is it really still possible to believe that Obama was merely the beneficiary of the financial meltdown?
I’m starting to suspect that Obama’s numbers in some of the horserace polls may be depressed by a “reverse Bradley effect”: some Obama voters in traditionally Republican areas, and some white Obama voters who live in areas where whites look down on blacks, may be more willing to say that they have a favorable opinion of Obama and an unfavorable one of McCain than to straight-out say they’re voting for a black man for President. That would explain why the internals seem so much stronger for Obama than the top-line numbers.
Not an issue in this case; the Times has him up 54-43. First release of the WaPo tracker has Obama up 53-44.
NYT was a callback poll with a final sample of fewer than 500 registered voters, so use with caution.