Palin a deal breaker for undecideds?

In a race where there are still loads - relatively speaking - of undecided voters both nationwide and in the battleground states, any glimmer of late movement among that fabled voting demographic could hold the key to the outcome of today’s election. While the conventional wisdom and secret McCain campaign “internal polls” suggest that McCain will be the chief beneficiary of the late undecideds, a last-minute CBS News poll finds that may not be the case. The culprit for McCain’s potential late-breaking agony? Sarah Palin.

There is evidence that Palin’s presence on the Republican ticket has hurt McCain with some voters. Fourteen percent of Obama’s supporters say they once supported McCain, and the top reason given for their switch was McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate.

While views of Palin have improved somewhat since last week, she continues fare worse than Biden when it comes to favorability. Today, 37 percent of registered voters have a favorable view of the Alaska governor, while the same percentage have an unfavorable view. Biden is viewed favorably by 43 percent and unfavorably by 21 percent.

These numbers are obviously not solely undecided voters or even voters in swing states. It’s a national poll and the question is so open-ended that the data could be mostly from voters who switched as soon as Palin was put on the ticket.

But that would mean they are most likely Hillary supporters who were initially flirting with backing McCain for the general. These types of working-class independents or even some conservative Democrats were seen as a potential wild card for McCain, breaking late for the GOP ticket in the face of 11th hour skepticism towards Obama and the possible success of the taxes argument featuring “Joe the Plumber.” It was in the dying small towns and old industrial areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania where these votes could come back to bite Obama, with the swing regions of these battlegrounds providing McCain with enough of an advantage to overcome anything but massive turnout in Dem-friendly locales.

Does McCain truly have a path to victory if Palin has already turned away 14% of potential swing voters? This data does not bode well for a campaign banking on en masse late breaks from undecideds.

Sphere: Related Content

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader.

Political Buzz | Powered by WordPress | ElegantBlue is a custom theme by Nathan Rice