Best’s News & Research Service - November 03, 2008 09:27 AM (EST)
BestWeek Survey Shows Obama Closing Gap on Industry Support
WASHINGTON //BestWire// - The insurance industry may be heavily Republican, but Sen. Barack Obama appears to be making inroads among insurance professionals. In BestWeek's final pre-election poll, the Illinois senator gained 8.7 percentage points in favorability from his standing in mid-September.
The survey of nearly 1,000 industry professionals showed Republican John McCain still held a 54.5% to 42.3% lead over Obama, but that was down from the 64.1% support McCain showed in BestWeek's prior poll, conducted Sept. 5 through Sept. 9. Just 2% said they remained undecided, while 1.6% were not voting for either of the major party candidates.
In the latest online poll, conducted Oct. 22 to Oct. 28, 11.4% of respondents reported that they had changed their minds about their choice of presidential candidates over the course of the campaign. Obama picked up the lion's share of vote-switchers, with 63%, compared with McCain's 28.7%.
The selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as running mate may have played a role in industry defections from McCain. Many of those who offered written explanations on the matter mentioned Palin as part of the reason for switching their vote to Obama, with one anonymous commenter suggesting "if McCain loses this election, it will appear to be the first time, at least in modern times, that a campaign was decided (lost) by a bad choice for running mate." Among those who said they were still voting for McCain, 79.2% supported the choice of Palin, compared with 20.8% who were opposed.
"I am a conservative, which means I have no candidate in this race that I really like, but McCain's positions are generally much closer to my viewpoints than are Obama's socialist-oriented positions," said Greg Foster of Porter Keadle Moore LLP in Atlanta.
Obama supporters were more confident in their chosen candidate's ability to address the unprecedented financial crisis he will inherit as president. Among those supporting Obama, 44.5% said they were "very confident" in his ability, compared with 35.9% of McCain supporters. The survey also showed 6.3% of McCain supporters said they were "not confident" in his ability to handle the crisis, while 3% of Obama supporters said the same.
Just over 20% of Obama's supporters agreed that he had "demonized" or somewhat demonized the insurance industry on the campaign trail, but most disagreed.
"In terms of the insurance-related reforms I support, I think that Obama will be at least as good and, perhaps, better than McCain. Significant deregulation has most often happened under Democrats," said Eli Lehrer, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
According to the "poll of polls" maintained by the Web site RealClearPolitics.com, as of Oct. 30, Obama had commanding leads in 20 states with a combined 238 electoral votes, compared with 16 states and 127 electoral votes for McCain. Six other states, with 73 electoral votes between them, were "leaning" toward Obama, compared with two McCain-leaning states with 15 electoral votes. Six states — Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida — were considered toss-ups.
By contrast, McCain was the favorite of insurance professionals polled by BestWeek in 28 states. Obama led among respondents from Alaska, California, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The candidates drew even in North Dakota, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
(By R.J. Lehmann, Washington bureau manager: raymond.lehmann@ambest.com)