PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama holds a statistically significant lead over John McCain in both Gallup likely voter models, according to Oct. 27-29 Gallup Poll Daily tracking. In the traditional model, which defines likely voters based on current voting intention and past voting behavior, Obama holds a 50% to 45% lead. In the expanded model, in which only current voting intentions are considered, his lead is 51% to 44%.
As in any election, the final outcome, in large part, hinges on who turns out to vote and who does not. If all registered voters participated, Obama would probably win comfortably. He leads McCain by 50% to 42% in the latest estimate of registered voter preferences, and has averaged a nine percentage point lead since Oct. 1. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
Both likely voter models currently show a slightly closer race than is evident in the registered voter estimate. Obama has never trailed in either likely voter model since Gallup began tracking likely voter preferences in early October, averaging a four-point lead using the traditional model and an eight-point lead using the expanded model.
Just five days remain until Election Day, and McCain and the Republicans are campaigning hard in key states to try and change Obama’s lead. Late comebacks are rare, but have occurred, including Harry Truman in 1948 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. — Jeff Jones
(Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.)
Derartu Tulu and Elfenesh Alemu of Ethiopia are among them.
By Brett Larner
On Oct. 28 the Tokyo International Women’s Marathon announced the elite field for the event’s 30th and final running, to take place Nov. 16. Top domestic runners Yoko Shibui, Yuri Kano, Yoshimi Ozaki and others will face off for slots on the 2009 Berlin World Track and Field Championships marathon team while competing against foreign competition including 2008 Osaka International Women’s Marathon winner Mara Yamauchi of the U.K., 2007 Tokyo IWM runner-up Salina Kosgei of Kenya, and 2008 London Marathon runner-up Russian Svetlana Zakharova. Aging Ethiopians Derartu Tulu and Elfenesh Alemu are also on the entry list along with newcomers Tetyana Filonyuk of Ukraine and Kenyan Magdaline Chemjor.
Former marathon national record holder Shibui (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) had a career-worst run at last year’s Tokyo but afterwards went on to experience a rebirth on the track, running the kind of performances not seen since her glory days over five years ago and ultimately making the Beijing Olympics 10000 m. If her rejeuvenation this year extends to the marathon she will be one of the favorites.
Yuri Kano (Second Wind AC) has also had a very strong year, clocking track and road PBs, winning June’s Sapporo International Half Marathon, finishing 3rd in July’s New York City Half Marathon, and winning October’s Rock and Roll Half Marathon in San Jose. Kano is still relatively inexperienced at the marathon but seems poised for a breakthrough performance.
Yoshimi Ozaki (Team Daiichi Seimei), the younger sister of Kano’s teammate Akemi Ozaki, ran a noteworthy debut marathon at the Nagoya International Women’s Marathon in March, clocking 2:26:19 to take a close 2nd behind fellow debutante Yurika Nakamura’s winning 2:25:51. Ozaki was graceful and strong, and like Kano may be ready for bigger things.
2008 Tokyo International Women’s Marathon Elite Field
Svetlana Zakharova (Russia) – PB: 2:21:31 (Chicago `02) – SB: 2:24:39 (London ’08)
Mara Yamauchi (U.K.) – PB: 2:25:10 (Osaka ’08) – SB: 2:25:10 (Osaka ’08) and 2:27:29 (Beijing Olympics)
Tuskegee, Alabama – Tuskegee University’s Nursing Program in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health was recently awarded a $1,279,302, three-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The grant was awarded for the Nursing Workforce Diversity Project. This initiative addresses Title VIII of the Public Health Service Act; Section 821, which focuses on Nursing Workforce Diversity.
“The grant will enable Tuskegee’s School of Nursing and Allied Health to strengthen its recruitment, retention, pre-entry, faculty development, cultural competence and financial support. Historically, racial and ethnic minorities have always been under-represented in the health professions in America,” said Dr. Cordelia Nnedu, associate professor and assistant director of the Department of Nursing. “If nursing is to meet the {www:health} care needs of our changing society, it must {www:increase} its efforts to prepare nurses who are sensitive to and knowledgeable about the population they serve.”
Through support from the grant, the School will conduct “Nursing as a Career” presentations each semester at Tuskegee and two other Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
“The faculty and staff in the School of Nursing and Allied Health are to be commended for working together to make the Nursing Workforce Diversity project a success. Without the team approach the over $1.2 million grant award would not have been made possible,” said Dr. Tsegaye Habtemariam, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health. “This grant moves the program a step closer in identifying students for the nursing program and eventually graduating {www:competent} nurses.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dictator Meles Zenawi is begging the international community to save him from his Somalia debacle. Did the international community ask this chigaram Woyanne to invade Somalia in the first place? He cannot even feed his own people in Tigray, but he talks about failure of the Somalia puppet leaders.
(MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS) – Prime Minster dictator Meles Zenawi, called on the international community to contribute in the efforts to find solution to the conflict in Somalia.
PM Meles Zenawi the current chairperson of Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), made the call at the ongoing IGAD meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.
Meles said Somali leaders should work together to reconstruct the country.
He said few African countries have been striving to maintain peace in Somalia, however the international community has not given due attention to that country.
He called for the international community on the occasion to provide humanitarian and technical assistance to Somalia.
Meles noted that the Somali leaders should reach consensus to find lasting solution to the problem. He also urged all parties to act as per the agreement reached in Djibouti.
IGAD member states have agreed to work with the international community to find lasting solution to the conflict in Somalia.
They have reached consensus to back the effort of deployment of peacekeeping forces in Somalia and to implement the agreement signed in Djibouti.
Leaders of IGAD member states, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi E. Frazer and Somali MPs took part in the extraordinary meeting convened to deliberate on the conflict in Somalia.
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist is taking heat from fellow Republicans for a last-minute decision to extend early voting in Florida, but any Democratic advantage might not be as overwhelming as conventional wisdom suggests.
Democrats are beaming that their party is outperforming the Republicans in early voting, releasing numbers Wednesday that show registrants of their party ahead 54 percent to 30 percent among the 1.4 million voters who have gone to the polls early.
“We’re thrilled at the record turnout so far,” said Democratic Party of Florida spokesman Eric Jotkoff. “It’s a clear indication that Democrats want to elect Barack Obama and Democrats up and down the ballot so that we can start creating good jobs, rebuilding our economy and getting our nation back on track.”
But party breakdowns for turnout aren’t the same as final tallies, and at least one poll offered a different view for the campaign of Republican John McCain.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll gave McCain a 49-45 lead over Democrat Barack Obama among Floridians who have already voted.
And Republicans continued to show a traditional strength, leading 50 percent to the Democrats’ 30 percent in the 1.2 million absentee ballots already returned.
Conducted Oct. 25-27, the Los Angeles Times poll gave Obama a 50-47 lead overall in Florida. Only a tiny fraction of the Florida respondents reported voting early, leaving McCain’s lead subject to a wide margin of error. A Quinnipiac University poll, released Wednesday, showed early voters favoring Obama 58-34, another small sample with a potentially wide margin of error.
Meanwhile, some Republicans grumbled that Crist’s dramatic change of heart to expand early voting hours, at the urging of Democratic members of the Florida congressional delegation and House Democratic Leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach.
Republican operatives said McCain can make up for the apparent Obama surge in early voting through the robust absentee ballot program.
Polls seesaw, but representatives of both campaigns still expect a tight race.
Republican Party of Florida spokeswoman Erin VanSickle declined to comment about early returns.
“Clearly, Gov. Crist continues to put people ahead of politics in Florida, and we commend him for his leadership,” she said. “This type of bold action is why Gov. Crist maintains such high approval ratings among Floridians of all backgrounds.”
With less than a week of campaigning left, Democrat Barack Obama is holding stable or growing leads over Republican John McCain in Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, according to a new set of TIME/CNN battleground-state polls conducted by Opinion Research Corp.
Obama leads McCain among likely voters by 51% to 47% in Ohio, a 4-point margin that has not budged since last week’s TIME’s survey. But he now leads McCain by 52% to 45% in Nevada and by 52% to 46% in North Carolina, margins which are both slightly larger than those reported by TIME in its surveys a week earlier.
The new statewide surveys also show Obama leading McCain in Pennsylvania, the key blue state in which McCain is making a last-ditch, major push to score an upset, by a comfortable 12-point margin of 55% to 43%. But Obama still trails his Republican rival in McCain’s home state of Arizona by a 7-point margin of 46% to 53%.
Clinging to a narrow lead in Ohio, perhaps the most closely contested state in the nation, Obama continues to perform best with women of all races, who back him over McCain by a narrow but crucial 55% to 43% margin, a slight improvement from a week before.
But while Obama’s performance among women in Ohio was firming, his support among men was weakening. Men in Ohio now favor McCain and Sarah Palin over Obama and Joe Biden by a margin of 51% to 47%, compared to a gap of 49% to 47% a week before.
Among Ohio’s white males, meanwhile, Obama appears to be falling faster: they now favor McCain by a 14-point margin of 56% to 42%. Just a week earlier, Obama was 10 points behind with this group. Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, who has come to represent something like a mascot or a rallying cry for the McCain campaign, hails from a suburb of Toledo, Ohio.
White men in Pennsylvania, by comparison, favor McCain too, but by a narrower 50%-46% margin, the TIME/CNN poll found. Women in Pennsylvania are more comfortable with the Democratic nominee than their counterparts in the Buckeye State to the west, though the difference is less dramatic. Keystone State women back Obama by a margin of 57% to 42%.
But the differences among key groups in Ohio and Pennsylvania are minor when compared with the demographic breakdowns in North Carolina. Though Obama leads in North Carolina by 6 points overall, McCain leads Obama among white women by an overwhelming margin of 62% to 32%, a ratio that is virtually identical to the margin reported by white men, who favor McCain 64% to 34%.
In Nevada, by contrast, Obama has seen his lead overall grow from a 4-point margin in late August to a 7-point margin in the latest TIME/CNN poll. Most of that growth, the data shows, comes from independents, white men and voters making less than $50,000 a year. McCain’s overall support in the state — 45% – is only 1 point higher than it was two months ago.
The polls were conducted over the phone from Oct. 23-28. In Arizona, 807 likely voters were surveyed; in Nevada, 684; in North Carolina, 667; in Ohio, 779; and in Pennsylvania, 768. Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, while Nevada and North Carolina had a margin of 4 percentage points.
