With the electorate's attention shifting from lipstick to the latest Wall Street meltdown, recent polls are showing some predictable increases in voter concern about the economy as well as some more puzzling numbers for both John McCain and Barack Obama. Voters may trust Obama more than McCain on the economy, but the scale of the current crisis seems to be driving the public to reconsider both candidates in a more critical light.
Not surprisingly, the government bailout of A.I.G. and bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers have dealt another blow to public morale about the state of the nation. In today's Hotline/Diageo daily tracker poll [PDF], 76 percent of voters said the country is headed in the wrong direction, up from 71 percent on Sunday. In the same poll, 47 percent of voters cited the economy as the most important issue in the presidential election, up from 36 percent on Sunday. Second on the list of most pressing issues was opposition to the Iraq War -- with just 7 percent.
Conventional wisdom in Washington has it that the renewed financial crisis is a political blessing for Obama, who had seen his poll numbers dip in the wake of the Republican convention and the arrival on the scene of Sarah Palin. At first glance, the data seems to bear that theory out. A CBS News/New York Times poll [PDF] found that Obama has a 7 percentage point lead over McCain on perceived competence to run the economy, including a 4 point lead among independents. And Marist polls in battleground states Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- all conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, after the economic crisis had begun to unfold -- show Obama looking strong as the economy looks weak.
Respondents in all three states listed the economy as the top election issue. The fact that a whopping 51 percent of voters in Michigan said that the economy tops their list of concerns, and that the Marist poll shows Obama opening up a 9 point lead there, suggests that the market fiasco is contributing to the Illinois senator's rising stock. Part of that appeal may be the fact that, throughout the election, polls have given Obama an edge over McCain on the question of who better understands the problems of ordinary Americans. According to a recent poll from Allstate and National Journal, Obama has a 10 point lead over McCain on this measure among voters in Ohio.
But complicating that picture is the Hotline/Diageo poll. On Sept. 14, the day before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, 50 percent of respondents said they believed Obama was the best qualified to handle the economy. But that figure has steadily dropped over the course of the week, to the point where 44 percent of voters now believe he is the best qualified.
Interestingly, declining confidence in Obama's economic stewardship has not helped McCain's numbers. The Marist poll shows the Arizona senator losing support as well, with just 39 percent of voters picking him as the most competent on economic issues, down from 41 percent five days ago. The curious upshot is that while the economy remains the No. 1 issue for voters, undecideds are picking sides at a tidy clip -- the Marist poll shows that number shrinking from 10 percent to 8 percent over the course of the week -- despite the fact that their confidence in both candidates to manage the economy appears to be decreasing.
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