McCain and Gallup polls as of Feb. 12-14

Here is the latest from Gallup.com:

Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008
Based on polling conducted Feb. 12-14, 2008

[...] John McCain's GOP nomination is all but assured now as former rival Mitt Romney endorsed him Thursday and asked his delegates to support McCain at the GOP convention. Mike Huckabee continues to campaign, though McCain is now just a few delegates short of clinching the nomination. The latest Gallup Poll Daily update shows McCain as the choice of 53% of nationwide Republican and Republican-leaning voters and Huckabee the preferred candidate of 28%.


Support for both Republican candidates has been fairly steady the last four days. -- Jeff Jones

How Does McCain’s Support Compare Historically?

by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- Most observers now say that with Sen. John McCain's victories in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, he is all but certain to be the Republican nominee this year, based on mathematical calculations of the number of GOP delegates necessary to gain the nomination.

But Mike Huckabee continues to campaign vigorously against McCain, and the news media spend a substantial amount of time highlighting the alleged rifts within the Republican Party in terms of conservative unwillingness to support McCain as their party's nominee.

Gallup Poll Daily election tracking makes it possible to place McCain's current status as his party's presumptive nominee in historical perspective by providing the basis for a comparison to the support other front-runners have enjoyed in previous elections.

[...]

These data show that at 51%, McCain's current support level is relatively low compared with the support that presumptive nominees in either party have enjoyed since 1980 at the time Gallup finished its primary polling. In fact, only Mondale in 1984 had a lower level of support in the final Gallup survey.

Surveying over the next several days will show whether McCain's support picks up after news of his three wins on Tuesday -- or whether it drops, given the news that Huckabee did well in Virginia among religious, conservative Republicans. If McCain's support climbs to at least 55%, then he will at least be able to say that his support is where Ronald Reagan's was in 1980 at the point when he was assumed to have won his party's nomination. [...]

For detailed comparison with Republicans and Democrats in past Primaries, follow the link.

Also from Gallup:

McCain Holds His Own Against Obama, Clinton