In CBS News's latest national poll, 13% of voters say they're completely undecided, and 27% of Obama voters and 31% of McCain voters are only weakly committed. Obama leads McCain among registered votes by six percentage points, unchanged from last month.
Most of these weak committers will fall in line, but assuming that half of them could, under the right circumstances, change their minds, we're left with about 20-25% of the electorate that can be broadly classified as transient.
Independents are tied; they give roughly 40% of their vote to each candidate. Obama has stronger support from liberals than McCain does among conservatives.
Education levels correlate with Obama's vote totals. He's losing among working class whites as defined by a lack of a college degree... but he's winning among whites making less than $50,000 -- enough of whom have college degrees and many of whom are younger voters. Merging the two definitions together, Obama has a 12 point lead.
A full 46% of Americans think the surge has made things better in Iraq, and the percentage of Americans who think John McCain will handle Iraq better than Obama has risen by six points..even as McCain's overall numbers have stayed the same.
Obama was hurt perceptually at the end of the primary by charges he was changing his positions in order to curry favor with moderate voters; his "believabiliy" gap is -11 compared to McCain's +5.
Uncommitted Voters
CBS is also resurveying a pool of 331 uncommitted voters who previously took part in a poll. Uncommitted = undecided + those who lean but could change their minds. 30% of those voters say they've now made up their minds. New Obama voters are more likely to be certain about their choice than new McCain voters, but not by much. Likewise, more uncommitted voters have a favorable impression of Obama than McCain, but only by ten points (34 to 24). A few changes in their perceptions: a lower percentage than before thinks Obama would not be an effective commander in chief, but 90% of the sample think that McCain would "very likely" or "somewhat likely" be a commander in chief.
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