Sunday's Rasmussen and Gallup tracking polls are now out, providing us with the Thursday-Friday-Saturday aggregation. All three days are post-Palin's speech and two of the three days are post-McCain's.
Rasmussen is now tied 46-all (48-all with leaners).
Gallup has McCain up 48-45.
Let's now compare the situation to a similar time in 2004 (below the fold)...
The final night of the 2004 GOP convention was September 2. Looking at roughly the next week's worth of polls from the Real Clear Politics 2004 archive (with Bush's percentages in bold), we get:
Zogby (1018 LV) 9/8 - 9/9 46% 42% 2% Bush +4
Time (857 LV) 9/7 - 9/9 52% 41% 3% Bush +11
AP/Ipsos (899 LV) 9/7 - 9/9 51% 46% 1% Bush +5
FOX/Opin. Dyn. (1000 LV) 9/7 - 9/8 47% 43% 3% Bush +4
ABC News/Wash Post (LV) 9/6 - 9/8 52% 43% 2% Bush +9
Pew Research (745 LV) 9/8 - 9/10 54% 38% 2% Bush +16
CBS News (909 RV) 9/6 - 9/8 49% 42% 1% Bush +7
CNN/USAT/Gallup (778 LV) 9/3 - 9/5 52% 45% 1% Bush +7
Newsweek (1,008 RV) 9/2 - 9/3 52% 41% 3% Bush +11
If the next several days of this year's polling show the race tied or McCain only slightly ahead, then Obama will be in much better shape than was Kerry in 2004.
Another interesting fact that pops out is that many of the 2004 post-GOP convention polls -- with Bush getting 51 or 52 percent -- presaged Bush's ultimate Election Day percentage of 50.7.
There's obviously no guarantee, but perhaps the 48% level that McCain is currently reaching will be his high-water mark for the rest of the campaign.
[Note: I am Alan Reifman of Texas Tech University, not Alan Abramowitz or Allan Lichtman.]