Obama's Surges After Europe Trip
Paul Bell
July 28, 2008
Barack Obama finds himself surging forward in the polls after his week long trip in Europe. He has gained almost four more percentage points in his lead since his trip began. This evidence comes from the Day to Day Politics Poll Average that is conducted on a daily basis from a week long average. On July 21st, the polling average showed Obama at 45.8% and John McCain at 44.3% - a 1.5 % lead. One week later, Obama is polling at 47.5% and John McCain at 42.3% - a 5.2% lead.Obama has gained almost 2% of the vote and McCain has lost 2% of the vote. With the margin of error much smaller than these gains and losses, it is safe to say that there was a post Europe surge in the polls for Obama and a decline for McCain. The decline for McCain may be due to his relative absence in the media and recent gaffes, whereas the reason for Obama's surge is most likely the positive press coverage.
John McCain 
Barack Obama
The two leading United States presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are statistically tied according to the latest Day to Day Politics Poll Average. Both the 7-day average and the 10-day average show that the difference between the two candidates is within the margin of error. Barack Obama is polling at 45.8% and John McCain is at 45.1%.

The lead for Obama has dropped by 4% in the last week, two weeks after his trip to Europe. There are about 4 weeks until the Democratic and Republican Conventions and about 9% of the public is still undecided, which is a 2% drop since last week.    

The ''Day to Day Politics Poll Average'' for the past week used the ''Gallup Tracking poll'', the ''Rasmussen Tracking poll'', the ''CNN poll'', and the ''USA Today/Gallup poll''.

The battleground states of Florida and Ohio, are also showing no statistically significant lead for either of the two candidates. However, Pennsylvania shows a statistically significant lead for Obama. These three states have been key battleground states in the past two elections with the winner of two of these three states winning the White House.  

Also, according to a new national poll, white workers give Obama the edge by 10 percent (47% for Obama, 37% for McCain), even though 1/6th of this voting group is undecided. Both parties agree that this group of voters will be a key voting bloc for victory. With 92 days left until the General Election, both parties will be campaigning heavily in the three major battleground states mentioned above and among this particular voting group.