PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama has a slim 46% to 43% margin over John McCain among registered voters in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day rolling average for Aug. 7-9.
Obama is on vacation in Hawaii, and while McCain continues to make campaign appearances, many Americans are watching the Olympics and presumably not focused heavily on the presidential campaign at this time. Indeed, the current three percentage point Obama advantage is right at the average gap Gallup Poll Daily tracking has measured all summer so far. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
The one political news story attracting significant attention over the last two days has been former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards' public confession that he had an extramarital affair. Given the remarkable stability of the presidential race this summer so far, it is unlikely that the Edwards situation will have any impact on voters' preferences for Obama or McCain. The most reasonable hypothesis is that the next potential opportunity for substantial change in voter preferences will come with the vice-presidential announcements and the back-to-back Democratic and Republican conventions. -- Frank Newport
Survey Methods
For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.
The general-election results are based on combined data from August 7-9, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,659 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
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