Newsweek has a new presidential poll out, and not surprisingly the results have changed radically now that they have corrected their methodology with respect to party ID.  Instead of Republicans making up 22-23% of all respondents, they are now 25% (and 28% of the RV respondents), and suddenly Obama’s lead is three points instead of fifteen.  It’s hard to know how much movement in the poll is simply the result of making this correction, and how much the race has tightened in recent weeks.  At first glance, it would appear as if all of the change has come from previous Obama supporters switching sides or reverting to undecided, but again this may be nothing more than fixing the glaring problems of the last poll.  The large undecided figure and the reasonably small Obama lead are much more in line with several other surveys. 

In one potentially telling crosstab, Obama receives just 36% white support, and he is still pulling in just 70% of Clinton supporters.  All in all, though, this new result is much more in line with Newsweek polls from before June, but it also shows an increase in undecided voters compared to both April and May, while I would have thought the opposite would be true now that both nominees are known. 

Filed under: politics