Obama and McCain are viewed favorably…as flip-floppers.

(CNN) – How do voters feel about the two major-party presidential candidates this year?

As the marathon 2008 campaign for the White House enters its final four months, a solid majority views both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain favorably. At the same time, a majority of voters also believes both men are flip-floppers who will change their opinions for political reasons. Voters are also skeptical that either man will be able to end the partisan gridlock in Washington.

According to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, 63 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of Obama, while 59 percent have a favorable opinion of McCain. Roughly one-third of voters hold a negative view of both candidates.

Compared to President Bush, whose approval ratings continue to hover around 30 percent, both candidates are seen in a remarkably positive light. Judged against the favorable ratings of past presidential nominees at this stage of the campaign, however, Obama and McCain are registering typical favorability numbers.

"In previous elections we have often seen both candidates get favorable ratings over 50 percent at this stage," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "In mid-summer, both parties tend to be unified behind their candidates but the negative ads have generally not yet started."

The poll also shows both candidates improving on their perceived weak points.

Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — With the U.S. economy mired in a slump, Americans still believe saving the environment is more important than fixing the economy, according to a new poll released Thursday. But consumers are more closely divided on the issue than they have been in the past.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, 49% of Americans say protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth. That compares to 44% of those surveyed who said the economy is the top priority, and the government should focus on economic growth even at the expense of the environment.

Full story

A new poll suggests Americans are staying home this July 4.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Many Americans will watch fireworks at home instead of hitting the road this July 4, according to a new poll released Wednesday, as record gasoline prices force people to make major changes in their daily lives.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, 31% of Americans have canceled or shortened their planned holiday weekend vacation because of the recent increase in the price of gas.

"When consumers talk about their thinning wallets, high fuel expenses is the reason they would point to first," said Wachovia economist Tim Quinlan.

The average price of a gallon of gas rose to an all-time high above $4.09 a gallon Wednesday, according to a survey from motorist group AAA. Gas prices are now about 3% higher than last month and 38.5% higher than year-ago levels.

Full story

CNN=Politics Daily is The Best Political Podcast from The Best Political Team.

(CNN) — Sen. John McCain's campaign got taken off message Monday when controversial comments by one of his key advisers surfaced.

In the latest episdoe of CNN=Politics Daily, Dana Bash reports on how McCain reacted to comments by adviser Charlie Black. Bash also has a report on what the McCain camp hoped would be the news of the day — McCain's proposal to award energy innovation with a $300 million prize.

On the Democratic side, Jim Acosta takes a look at the fact that former President Bill Clinton still has yet to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, his party's presumptive nominee and the Democrats' new standard-bearer.

Finally, Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider breaks down poll results on the impact that race and age may play in the general election contest between Obama and McCain.

Click here to subscribe to CNN=Politics Daily.

Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain favor ending the federal ban on off-shore oil drilling.

(CNN) – A new Gallup poll suggests more than half of the country may support a proposal backed by President Bush and Sen. John McCain to allow states to authorize off-shore oil drilling, a practice currently banned by the federal government.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans favor allowing oil drilling in coastal and wilderness areas that are currently off-limits. Forty-one percent of Americans oppose allowing drilling in those areas, and 2 percent have no opinion.

The poll also reveals a partisan divide on the issue. Eighty percent of Republicans surveyed favored opening up off-limits areas to oil exploration and 56 percent of independents favored allowing the practice. But 59 percent of Democrats opposed the idea.

During the last week, the prospect of oil drilling off the U.S. coast has become into a major policy dispute between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, respectively the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees, and between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The Gallup survey involved telephone interviews nationally with 1,013 adults aged 18 and older and was conducted May 19-21. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

A majority of Americans believe Sen. Obama will best Sen. McCain in November, according to a new Gallup poll.

(CNN) – Sen. Barack Obama may be running neck-and-neck with Sen. John McCain in many recent polls but a new survey suggests a majority of Americans think he’s got a far bigger advantage over his fall opponent.

In a new Gallup survey, Obama leads McCain by eleven percentage points – 52 percent to McCain’s 41 percent – on the question of who Americans believe will win the White House this November. Seventy-six percent of Democrats believe Obama will win while 67 percent of Republicans believe McCain will keep the presidency in their party.

Although both men enjoy support from independent voters, more independents believe Obama will beat McCain with 50 percent of the critical group believing Obama will take the White House and 41 percent believing McCain will.

Obama is also winning the perception race among older Americans, even though McCain polls better with that demographic. Fifty-five percent of Americans aged 55 and older believe Obama will win while, just 36 percent in that group believe McCain will be victorious. Among Americans aged 35 to 54, the perception race is tighter; 52 percent of that group believe Obama will win and 43 percent believe McCain will.

Although younger Americans have supported Obama throughout the Democratic primary season, the group is essentially split over who they think will win the White House. Forty-eight percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 believe Obama will win while 45 percent of the group believe McCain will win.

Men are also nearly equally divided on who they believe will win the general election; 50 percent believe Obama will win while 44 percent of men believe McCain will be the next president. With women, Obama enjoys a wide lead in the perception race. Fifty-four of women believe Obama will win the White House and 38 percent believe McCain will win.

The poll was conducted June 9-12 and consisted of telephone interviews of 822 adults nationally, aged 18 or older. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

A new poll shows Republicans are demoralized.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Republican party may face tough times at the polls come November, according to results of a new national survey.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Survey out Friday indicates that 2008 may not be a good year for Republicans up and down the ticket, even though most national surveys indicate the race for the White House between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama is quite close right now.

Interactive: Check out the latest poll numbers

Sixty-three percent of Democrats questioned say they are either extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year. Only 37 percent of Republicans feel the same way, with 36 percent of Republicans saying they are not enthusiastic about voting.

Full story

(CNN) - Sen. Hillary Clinton's exit from the presidential race seems to have given Sen. Barack Obama, now the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, a bump in support against Sen. John McCain? The Gallup Daily Tracking Poll released Monday suggests the answer is yes, showing Obama holds a 6-point edge of the presumptive Republican nominee — the largest margin to date.

Obama holds a six percentage point lead - 48 percent versus 42 percent — against McCain, according to Gallup tracking poll results released Monday. Gallup reports that the Illinois senator's lead has held steady at five to seven percentage points since effectively claiming his party's nomination.

Obama's recent lead over McCain represents the Illinois senator's best showing against his new rival. Obama and McCain have mostly been polling at a statistical dead heat against one another in the Gallup tracking poll's general election match-ups.

The Gallup results released Monday are based on telephone interviews of 2,389 registered voters. The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points.

(CNN) – As Sen. Barack Obama ends the primary process and begins his transition from Democratic front-runner to presumptive nominee, a new Gallup poll suggests that his bid to win over the support of his party’s white and Hispanic women voters is far from over.

Even with her presidential bid all but formally over, Sen. Hillary Clinton edges Obama slightly among female Democratic voters overall, with a four point lead; the New York senator has the support of 49 percent of Democratic women while Obama has support from 45 percent, according to Gallup.

Although Obama lags Clinton by only four percentage points among female Democrats overall, his problems with white and Hispanic women are much deeper.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sen. Obama campaigned in Billings, Montana last week.

(CNN) – Sen. Barack Obama appears to be headed for a win in one of the final contests of the Democratic nomination race, according to a new poll of likely Democratic primary voters in Montana.

Obama’s support stands at 52 percent and Clinton’s is at 35 percent. Thirteen percent of those who participated in the survey were unsure who they preferred as the Democratic nominee.

The Mason-Dixon poll of 400 likely Democratic primary voters in Montana was conducted May 19-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.

Montana and South Dakota will hold the last Democratic presidential primaries on June 3; sixteen pledged delegates are up for grabs in Montana’s primary and 15 in South Dakota.

Sen. Clinton was introduced by her husband at a campaign event in Louisville, Kentucky Monday.

(CNN) – A day after Sen. Hillary Clinton declared that the Democratic nomination fight was “nowhere near over,” polling data released Tuesday suggest Clinton is losing ground with key demographic groups that have powered her campaign so far.

Sen. Barack Obama’s 16-point lead over Clinton in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters comes from even higher support among groups that have been supporting him throughout the primary race, and from newfound support among several groups that have backed Clinton.

Obama leads or ties Clinton among women, Easterners, whites, adults with no college education, and Hispanics, with the New York senator’s support now below 50 percent in each group, according to Gallup. Both are backed by 47 percent of white voters surveyed, and Obama is essentially tied with Clinton – 47 percent to 46 percent – among Democrats whose education level is a high school diploma or less.

Clinton’s advantage among women overall seems to have evaporated, with Obama now holding a lead within the survey’s three point margin of error, 49 percent to 46 percent. Hispanics favor Obama over Clinton by 7 percentage points, 51 percent to 44 percent. And Obama now leads among voters in Eastern states by 9 percentage points over Clinton – 52 percent to 43 percent.

Read the rest of this entry »

An estimated 75,000 people came out to support Barack Obama Sunday in Oregon.

(CNN)– Amid reports that the Democratic Party’s leaders and largest fundraisers are beginning to take steps to try to bring their party together after a long, hard-fought primary campaign, the latest Gallup daily tracking poll suggests Democratic voters are beginning to coalesce around Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama holds a 16-point lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in Gallup’s latest daily tracking poll released Monday. He has the support of 55 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters while Clinton’s support is at 39 percent.

Previously, Obama’s largest lead over Clinton was 11 percentage points, in daily tracking polls conducted in mid-May and mid-April, according to Gallup. Prior to John Edwards’s exit from the Democratic nomination race, Clinton held a 20-point lead over Obama in mid-January.

The results are based on a survey of 1,261 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters using combined data from May 16-18, 2008. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Kentucky and Oregon hold their Democratic primaries Tuesday. Obama is favored in Oregon’s contest and Clinton in Kentucky’s, according to CNN’s latest poll of polls in each state.

New poll results show that voters think the Democratic candidates have a better handle on economic issues.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The vast majority of Americans think things are going badly in the country, according to a new poll.

Seven in 10 people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say things are going badly, with only 30 percent saying things are going well.

"It's been 16 years since the public gave the country's condition such a bad rating: January 1992, to be precise, in the last year in office of the last president named Bush," CNN pollster Keating Holland said.

"Seventy percent is a lot worse than two years ago, when 48 percent thought times were bad and the Republicans lost control of Congress," CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider added.

The poll indicates that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain fares poorly against either Democratic candidate when it comes to most domestic and economic issues but has a big advantage on terrorism and a narrow edge on Iraq.

Full story

(CNN) — A new sign a growing numbers of Democratic primary voters may think the campaign season has passed its sell-by date: in a new survey, almost two out of three people think that the marathon campaign is doing the party more harm than good.

In a Gallup poll released Friday, 62 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the fact that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still battling while the Republican nomination has been settled for weeks is making it less likely that either of them will be able to win in the fall – twice as many as the 30 percent who say the extended primary season is actually helping Democratic odds of re-taking the White House.

In a similar March survey, just over half of Democratic primary voters polled by Gallup – 56 percent — said the lengthy campaign was harming the party.

The Gallup poll of 1,008 Americans was conducted April 25-27, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

For many voters, it feels like the never-ending campaign.

(CNN) — Longtime political observers are running out of adjectives to describe this year’s presidential race: Record-breaking. Historic. Epic.

But with the campaign firmly settled into a seemingly-endless three-way slugfest, it may come as little surprise that voters in a new Pew Research Center survey had a few other words in mind.

Roughly two-thirds of those polled say it’s been “too long.” Half of them say it’s become “too negative.” And the candidates aren’t the only ones fighting campaign fatigue: more than a third now say the closest race in a generation is just “too dull."

Blame the post-Super Tuesday grind. Two months ago, just 28 percent of voters in the same survey said the race was too negative, and one in four said it was too dull. In the February poll, 57 percent told pollsters that the race was too long – oddly enough, fewer than the 66 percent who had given the same response four months earlier in the cycle.

The still-unresolved contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seems to be making for a shell-shocked party: two months ago, roughly one in five Democrats thought the campaign was too negative. Now that number has risen to 50 percent.

(CNN) – Where do Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stand among Democrats nation-wide? It depends on the poll.

In a just released Newsweek survey, Obama has opened up a 19 point lead over Clinton nationally, 54 to 35 percent. But in Friday's daily Gallup tracking poll, the two Democrats are only separated by 3 percentage points.

In a CNN average of those two surveys as well as ones recently released by ABC News/Washington Post and Reuters/Zogby, Obama holds an 11 point lead over Clinton, 51 percent to 40 percent.

Obama expands lead nationally according the the latest CNN poll of polls.

(CNN) – Barack Obama has extended his lead in national polls over Hillary Clinton, despite several days of negative coverage over his controversial comments about some small-town Americans.

According to a new CNN analysis of several recent polls, the Illinois senator now holds a 9-point lead over Clinton, 50 percent to 41 percent. That compares to the 3-point margin Obama held over Clinton at the end of March.

The so-called "poll of polls" includes surveys conducted between April 7-15 — meaning four of the days were those that immediately followed the initial reports of Obama's now-famous comments.

The polls included in the analysis were those conducted by Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, Reuters/Zogby, and AP/Ipsos.

CNN=Politics Daily is The Best Political Podcast from the Best Political Team.

(CNN) — The countdown to the March 4 primaries continues as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee make their pitches to voters in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

 In the latest episode of CNN=Politics Daily, Sen. Barack Obama picks up an endorsement from former rival Sen. Christopher Dodd.  Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley reports on the endorsement as well as the latest from Sen. Clinton.

John McCain ended up in the awkward situation of having to distance himself from comments made by a supporter who introduced him at a campaign event Tuesday.  Chief National Correspondent John King was there and reports on the supporter's controversial comments and McCain's response.

The recent release of three new national polls shows how the Democratic nomination race has changed since voting began in Iowa at the beginning the year.  Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider reports on the new data — viewed together as a poll of polls — and the issues driving voters' views and preferences.

Finally, Howard Kurtz, the host of CNN's Reliable Sources, reports on the media's coverage of Sen. Obama.

Click here to subscribe to CNN=Politics Daily.

–CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Texans appear poised to favor Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain over either of the Democratic candidates for president in the general election, a CNN/Opinion Research Poll released Thursday shows.

Assuming McCain is the Republican presidential nominee, 52 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for him, compared with 44 percent for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the current Democratic front-runner.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton fares slightly worse, with 42 percent, compared with 55 percent for McCain.

Full story

(CNN) — It's all tied up in Texas.

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll suggests that the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois is a statistical dead heat in Texas, which holds primaries March 4.

In the survey, out Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters support Clinton as their choice for the party's nominee, with 48 percent backing Obama. But if you take into account the poll's sampling error of 4.5 percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.

Two recent polls by other organizations also show the race statistically even.

Full story