Dramatic Polling Evidence Proves Palin Twice Gave McCain Huge Poll Boost

The now long demolished myth that Sarah Palin cost John McCain the 2008 election still hangs around in the Palin hating dead-enders basement blogging. More sensible people have had the following Gallup data, which proves conclusively that Palin invigorated McCain's moribund campaign, put to them so often that the meme has all but dissipated. Matt K. Lewis at the Daily Caller (link http://tiny.cc/u3buww  ) dealt with the leftist bias, especially from Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, in a hard hitting article.

In clear point of fact, the McCain/Palin team were in the lead right up to the financial collapse and McCain's "suspension"  of his campaign. Nothing Palin could do could reverse those disasters, but for the record here are the details of the massive change Palin made to the teams dynamic/polling.

"Gallup polls from the last presidential race prove that once Palin joined the ticket on Aug. 29, 2008, McCain’s ratings steadily climbed to a point where the Republican ticket even outshone Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

In the two weeks before Palin joined the McCain ticket, the Arizona senator drifted in the low 40 percentile range, mostly around 41, 42 and 43 percent, while Obama held as much as an 8 point lead at about 49 and 50 percent. Four days after Palin joined the ticket, however, McCain’s numbers climbed to 45 percent and Obama’s sank to 47 percent, narrowing the gap significantly from eight points to two.

Between Sept. 4-6, McCain and Palin actually overshot the Obama ticket by 3 percent with the Republicans in the lead at 48 percent and the Democrats at only 45. McCain consistently held that lead until Sept. 15, and then the candidates balanced out with Obama enjoying a mere three-point lead, and no lead at all from Sept. 22-24, when the numbers were tied at 46 percent."

What is little commented on, but in some ways even more remarkable, is that Palin managed the almost superhuman feat of once again lifting McCain in the polls-this time when McCain had fallen 9 points behind Obama/Biden.

Under massive attack from the leftist media and under astonishing pressure when 70 million people tuned in to see her debate the vastly experienced Joe Biden. Palin, as she did at the GOP's convention, turned in an outstanding performance. The entire leftist media contingent was waiting for Palin to fall flat and for the McCain campaign to be done and dusted. Instead Palin turned in a polished performance which even the media had to, grudgingly, say, "exceeded expectations".

"By the standards of those Americans conditioned by late-night comics to think of Palin as an inarticulate idiot incapable of putting coherent sentences together or understanding basic policy questions, she succeeded enormously. She had a solid 90 minutes of rapid, confident discourse and kept herself from being the story of the night (as well as the constant punch line of the election season). Improved her image and partially turned the page on McCain's bad two weeks, enabling the Republican-ticket team to try to regain some footing in a contest that has been steadily slipping away "


A dramatic piece of evidence, taken in conjunction with the polls taken after Palin's vice-presidential nominee acceptance speech, allied to post election exit polling has built a remarkable portrait of Palin as the key factor in what polling success the McCain campaign enjoyed.

A CBS poll taken just after the vice-presidential debate found that Obama's lead fell from 9 points before the debate to only 3 amongst likely voters subsequent to it. Palin also lifted her personal approval rating by a huge 8 points to tie Biden

The full report is HERE (which I have never presented or saw before) and reproduced below is the key summary of the poll which proves indisputably, when allied to the Gallup polling, that Palin provided a very positive contribution to the Republican ticket. In retrospect it is hard to imagine McCain having done anywhere near as well as he did if Palin had not been the vice-presidential nominee. This is further proven by the post election exit polling, reproduced below, which showed that Palin was a positive factor in peoples choice of the GOP ticket 

"CBS Poll: Presidential Race Tightens

In a sign that the race for president has returned to about where it was before the first presidential debate, the Obama-Biden ticket leads the McCain-Palin ticket 47 percent to 43 percent among registered voters in a new CBS News poll.

The Obama-Biden ticket led by a wider margin, nine percentage points, in a CBS News pollreleased last Wednesday, before Joe Biden and Sarah Palin faced off in the vice presidential debate. Obama-Biden led by five percentage points on Sept. 25.

In the new poll, the Democratic ticket leads by 3 percentage points, 48 percent to 45 percent, among likely voters. 

Both Biden and Palin appear to have benefited from their performance in the vice presidential debate. Both now have 40 percent approval ratings - an increase of six points for Biden and eight points for Palin from their pre-debate approval ratings."

Here is the exit polling report:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1023/exit-poll-analysis-2008

PEW RESEARCH CENTER FOR THE PEOPLE & THE PRESS November 5, 2008

Yet those who cited Palin's selection as a factor in their vote -- 60% of all voters -- favored McCain by 56% to 43%.