Obama ahead in public opinion polls
Public opinion polls have Barack Obama leading John McCain in the presidential race.
Rasmussen Reports has Obama leading McCain 52 percent to 45 percent. The polling firm also has Obama leading the Electoral College 255 to 163. A presidential candidate needs 270 votes to win the election.
The latest Zogby/Reuters/C-SPAN poll shows Obama ahead 48 percent to 44 percent.
A recent poll of Michigan voters by Rasmussen Reports shows a 16-point lead for Obama after McCain decided pull campaign funding in the state.
"Ultimately, polls are polls, and this year, more than ever, we have seen large discrepancies from polling company to polling company," said College Republican Vice Chairman and Lincoln Park sophomore Nathan Inks.
Inks said 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was also leading in the polls around this time in 2004 but lost. Inks believes that as the election nears, McCain will come back in the polls like President George W. Bush did in 2004.
"I think Obama's lead in the polls is higher because the student vote is under-represented," said Karl Bouwhuis, president of College Democrats and Lowell junior.
He said because many students are first-time voters, many of them are excluded from opinion polls and they are harder to reach because they have only cell phones. Many telephone surveys have access only to residential phone numbers.
"I think the polls were right in 2004, but Bush had better get out the vote effort," Bouwhuis said.
He believes the Democrats have learned from their mistakes and are trying to mobilize as many voters as possible to support Obama.
The Zogby/Reuters/C-SPAN Poll also reports that 9 percent of voters remain undecided.
One of those undecided voters is Kris Harrison. The Macomb sophomore has not been impressed by either candidate so far in the race. Still, Harrison was surprised that McCain was behind in the polls.
"I figured that people would vote for McCain because I thought he would create more jobs," he said.
If he had to vote for one candidate, Harrison said he would probably vote for McCain.
Rasmussen Reports also found that 52 percent of voters approve of McCain's mortgage bailout plan. The Republican candidate wants the federal government to buy up distressed loans and refinance them so people could stay in their homes.
However, national polling shows that 48 percent of voters trust Obama to handle the bailout plan, compared with 43 percent trusting McCain.
Bouwhuis said that Obama favors more regulation of the economy.
"The lack of oversight caused Wall Street to be irresponsible and that irresponsibility is what caused the market to crash in the first place," he said.
Inks believes that as the election draws near, people will change their opinion.
"If the economy continues to suffer, people will realize that Obama's proposed tax increase on stock sales (capital gains tax) will drive people to sell their stocks before he is inaugurated, driving the economy to an even worse state," he said.
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