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McCain Leads Among Small Businesses; Good News For Obama?

By Bizbox

When we layed out McCain and Obama's positions on issues particularly relevant to small businesses (think taxes, trade, health care, and the like), we noted that owners of such businesses tend to lean Republican due to that party's reputation for pro-business policies and smaller government. A brand-new survey confirms that tendency: earlier this month, 64% of the surveyed small business owners said they were planning to vote for Sen. John McCain, with the remaining 36% pulling the pre-Election Day lever for Sen. Barack Obama. But the results also show these entrepreneurs being more open to Obama than you may expect--while at the same time pointing the way for how Obama can gain yet more ground with this constituency.

The key to interpreting the results of the survey, which was conducted by SurePayroll and had 1,062 respondents (via Independent Street), is to compare the numbers on the candidates with those on the parties. The candidates are 64% McCain-36% Obama. These were the only two options; we can infer that undecideds picked whomever they are leaning towards. However, on the question of which party is better for small business, 57% say the Republican Party, 18% say the Democratic Party, and 25% responded, "I don't think the party matters."

The first thing to note is that anemic Democratic number, especially contrasted with the majority who prefer the GOP. No doubt many Democrats would wear their number, which is the consequence of policies that side with workers over owners, as a badge of pride. But it's still there.

The second point, however, is that, as far as Obama is concerned, that awful Democratic number means that he is wildly outperforming his party. More than that: he captures a significant majority of those who say party doesn't matter, and are therefore focused exclusively on the candidates themselves--those 25%, who probably correlate strongly with Independents.

To elaborate: it is difficult to conceive that more than a few percentage points of those who give either party an advantage also favor, on these issues, the candidate of the other party; and these outliers should, roughly, cancel each other out. That gives Obama, again roughly, over three-fourths of those who are looking exclusively at the candidates themselves: that 18% share of the 25% bloc. (Think of it this way: if the candidates evenly split that 25% who don't distinguish between the parties on these issues, then the final result would be 69.5% McCain-30.5% Obama.)

These figures suggest that, at least as regards small business owners, it is Obama, and not McCain--who has famously attempted to distance himself from his own party, whose current leader, after all, has abysmal approval ratings--who has successfully dissociated himself from an unpopular brand. They also suggest that, in appealing to small business owners, such a dissociation should continue to be his strategy. (One suggestion for how Obama could do this would involve trade, where he has been aggressive in critiquing deals, including NAFTA.)

The 18% who favor Democrats represent something of a ceiling, since changing people's perceptions of large and perpetual parties requires great effort and time. It is Obama's second 18%, who aren't looking primarily to party, upon whom he should look to build if he wants to make further inroads into what should be a solidly McCain constituency.

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