McCain's numbers in the tracking poll

By Richard Baehr

Rasmussen has numbers today that must be making the McCain camp very happpy.

Looking ahead to the General Election, John McCain is leading Barack Obama 47% to 41%. He leads Hillary Clinton 48% to 41% (see recent daily results). Among voters nationwide, McCain is now viewed favorably by 56% of voters nationwide and unfavorably by 41%. Obama's reviews are 47% favorable and 50% unfavorable. For Clinton, those numbers are 43% favorable, 55% unfavorable (see recent daily results).

Daily tracking results are updated daily at 9:30 Eastern Time.

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator shows the Electoral College race is a Toss-Up. Democrats lead in states with 190 Electoral Votes while the GOP has the advantage in states with 189. When "leaners" are added, the Democrats lead 243 to 240. Recent state polling shows potentially competitive races in Washington, New Jersey, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (see summary of recent state-by-state results).

All 4 tossup states with recent polling data are blue states. Actually make it eight -- Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Oregon and Minnesota all showed McCain with small leads or just behind last week.

The GOP has a perfect candidate for this year -- probably the only one who could win. If all these blue states are in in play, and McCain remains very strong in Ohio and Florida, he is in very good shape.

Will it hold once the barrage of Democrat negative ad buys begin? It partly depends on when the they begin. That is the beauty of Democratic food fight from McCain's perspective -- the negative buys on McCain don't begin until much later, when he hopes to be defined already by his campaign in a positive way.

Rasmussen is very cautious where he places states in the race at the moment, if they have trended to one party in the past. He has several states in the lean or likely (New Jersey) Democratic column, though McCain is ahead of both Democrats. He has states as tossups where McCain is solidly ahead (Ohio).