Favorability Update: McCain and Palin Continue to Slide

A couple of days ago I posted an article and chart showing the rapidly dropping favorability ratings of both John McCain and Sarah Palin, based on data from the Daily Kos / Research 2000 daily tracking poll. (See my comments on that post if you're going to try the "it's from DK so it can't be trusted" bit.)

I just updated my graph based on two more days of polling figures, and they show that the divergence between the Democrats' and the Republicans' favorables is continuing:



Again, these numbers are "net favorability" for each candidate, meaning, what percentage of those polled have a positive view of them, minus how many have a negative view.

As I surmised on the 15th, these numbers tend to be leading indicators for poll movements, and we are seeing those occur now. I would expect the McCain figures to bounce back; I think most of his hit here is due to his negative campaigning, and if he stops that, he should recover.

But frankly, despite Palin's net favorability now being negative, I think her figures have far more room to drop, at least in the short run. Simply put, more and more people are figuring out every day that she's a dishonest, power-hungry fraud -- and her continued cowardice in avoiding the media almost three weeks after selection makes people nervous about her competence.