Six in 10 of registered voters doubt Sarah Palin's qualifications to be President and fewer than half believe she has a grasp of complex issues, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Sept. 27-29. ABC's analysis of the results said: "In advance of her debate against Joe Biden tonight, Palin now looks like more of a drag than a boost to the GOP ticket."
The Post/ABC poll reflects similar findings in other national polls, like one published yesterday by the Pew Research Center and the Associated Press-GfK, as well as battleground state surveys by Public Policy Polling and Quinnipiac University.
The number of voters who said that John McCain's choice of Palin made it less likely they would vote for him rose from 19 percent on Sept. 4 to 32 percent in the Post/ABC survey. Twenty-three percent said they are more likely to vote for McCain because she is on the ticket, about the same number as in early September, and 45 percent said it would make no difference.
The survey found that voters, by a 60 percent to 35 percent margin, said Palin did not have the kind of experience necessary to effectively serve as President, compared to 70 percent who said Biden did. At one point in early September, 47 percent said Palin had the necessary experience against 45 percent who said she did not.
While voters say by 58 percent to 38 percent that Palin understands their problems, a number similar to that of Biden, they also say by 49 percent to 46 percent that she doesn't understand complex issues. Three-quarters of voters say that Biden does.
The Pew poll, conducted Sept. 27-29, found that 51 percent of voters now say she is unqualified to be president compared to 37 percent who say she is. That's a reversal of the numbers at the beginning of September when she was judged qualified by a margin of 52 percent to 39 percent.
AP/GfK reported that just a quarter of likely voters believed Palin had the right experience to be president compared to the 40 percent who felt that way last month.
Surveys in four key states by Public Policy Polling also show the drops in Palin's favorable to unfavorable ratings from where they were right after the GOP convention to where they are now:
- Colorado: 41/38 to 38/47, a negative shift of 12 points.
- North Carolina: 42/34 to 38/41, a negative shift of 11 points.
- Florida: 45/35 to 39/43, a negative shift of 14 points.
- Michigan: 43/35 to 39/43, a negative shift of 12 points.
In its swing state polling conducted Sept. 27-29, Quinnipiac said Palin's favorability ratings in Florida had done an about-face from 47 percent to 23 percent favorable in early September, to 39 percent to 36 percent negative. The story was the same in Ohio. Palin's favorability ratings plummeted from 41 percent favorable/22 percent unfavorable in early September to an even 35/35 percent split.
In Pennsylvania, Palin is now seen unfavorably by 37 percent of Pennsylvanians compared to 34 percent who regard her positively, a turnaround from early September when her favorable-to-unfavorable ratio was 39 percent to 26 percent, according to Quinnipiac.
![[RSS]](http://67.192.49.194/templates/images/rss_icon.gif){kind=icon}
Post A Comment