Gallup: McCain Is Solidifying His Base, But Losing Ground Among Independents

As we noticed before, polls do not support the idea that adding a woman to the Republican ticket would turn the gender gap upside down, and give McCain the advantage among independent, or even democratic, white women. Before the Democratic Convention, this constituency was essentially split 50-50 in terms of candidate support.
New Gallup data show, however, that after the Democratico convention McCain has lost ground among both white independent women and white independent men since the convention and his choice of Sarah Palin as vice-presidential candidate.
Instead, the data suggest that McCain has in essence fought a rear-guard action of sorts among white women of his own GOP base, building their support to a degree even as he was losing support among independents and Democrats of both genders.
It iappears that Palin of Alaska may have had the effect of solidifying support among women of his own party but nothing more.
This would be a useful result, anyway: in the last week, Republicans have shown slight increases in their enthusiasm about this year's election, though Democrats continue to hold a significant advantage over them, 61% to 42% are "more enthusiastic of voting" this year than in 2004.

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