With the clock running out on John McCain, the news cycle was not particularly favorable to him today (two bad Palin stories, plus the market below 9000, and a piss-poor answer from McCain on the Powell criticism--"all I can do is laugh"??).
Neither, by and large, was the polling. Today was another data point that makes the case that far from closing the gap, the McCain campaign may be losing some ground to Barack Obama. This was evident is several of the seven daily tracking polls, as well as in several state polls as well.
In all, we have a few national polls, our daily seven trackers, plus a total of 29 individual polls to peruse. Follow me.
PRESIDENTIAL: NATIONAL AND TRACKING POLLS
Following a very good day for Barack Obama in the national polls (leads up to 14 points nationally, an average lead of over seven points in the daily trackers), Team Obama showed no signs of momentum stalling as we head toward the finish line. The trackers were all over the place, but showed a slight bump overall for Obama. The three national polls were even more scattershot.
Our first national poll to hit the streets was a rather old (in the field since over a week ago) poll by Franklin and Marshall College. It has Barack Obama leading by five (50-45). Remember, though, that the overwhelming majority of this survey was conducted before the Powell endorsement. Also note that among "registered voters", they had Obama leading McCain by 11%.
Then we got a pair of polls within an hour, painting a very different picture of the election, and of the "likely electorate". Fox News comes in with Obama leading by 10 among registered voters, and leading by nine among likely voters. Meanwhile, AP sponsors a poll from GfK, showing that Obama leads among registered voters by five points. Among "likely voters"?? A single point. Nate Silver has already taken a pretty good shot at both Franklin and Marshall and GfK for these screens. Worth a read.
The trackers, which are now fully contemporaneous with the Powell endorsement, paint a slightly more affirmative tale for Team Obama. Four of the tracking polls gave Obama a gain of two full points today. Those were ABC/WaPo (which went from O+9 to O+11, his biggest lead to date), Zogby (O+8 to O+10, his biggest lead to date), Research 2000 (O+8 to O+10), and Rasmussen (O+4 to O+6). Worth noting--this is the first time ever that Obama has led McCain by double digits in THREE separate tracking polls.
Hotline/Diageo, which has tinkered with their partisan formula throughout, now has it at near 2004 levels (D 41, R 38). As a result, they have one of the closest results of any of the daily trackers, with Obama clinging to a five point lead (47-42) in their poll. Both IBD/TIPP (O+6 to O+4) as well as Gallup (O+10 to O+8), as might have been expected, gave back a few points today after several big days in a row for Senator Obama. IBD/TIPP also has a definitely pro-Republican likely voter screen. Looking at the internals, it appears that they think MORE Republicans will show up at the polls than Democrats. Clearly, they are not including early voters here.
FWIW, the quasi-tracker from Battleground has the race at two points. Which is one point better for Obama than yesterday. As erratic as that poll is, I am no longer certain I care about it. But I'll keep reporting on it, anyway.
NATIONAL POLLS
Fox News: Obama 49%, McCain 40%
Hearst/Franklin & Marshall: Obama 50%, McCain 45%
GWU/Battleground: Obama 49%, McCain 47%
AP/GfK: Obama 44%, McCain 43%
TRACKING POLLS
ABC/Washington Post: Obama 54%, McCain 43%
Zogby: Obama 52%, McCain 42%
Research 2000: Obama 51%, McCain 41%
Gallup: Obama 52%, McCain 44%
Rasmussen: Obama 51%, McCain 45%
Hotline/Diageo: Obama 47%, McCain 42%
IBD/TIPP: Obama 46%, McCain 42%
PRESIDENTIAL: STATE-BY-STATE POLLS
The conventional wisdom is that state polls lag behind national polls by a few days. Ergo, these should be John McCain's best state polling days, coming on the heels of his best national polling days in weeks at the end of last week.
If these are his best state polling days, he is in quite a bit of trouble. New polling has him down double digits in three blue states his campaign claims to have designs on: Pennsylvania (where, after several days of tightening, the tracking poll there shows Obama slightly expanding his lead), Wisconsin, and Maine.
CNN, as they do weekly, chimes in from five red states. Their conclusion? Obama is leading four of them. Only West Virginia goes heavily for McCain, and there is another poll out today disputing how big a lead he has there, as well.
Plus, when ALASKA is threatening to go into single digits, and SOUTH DAKOTA and KENTUCKY are already there...
Not that there isn't ANY good news for McCain. Mason Dixon becomes the "Drudge Pollster" of the day, with a one-point lead for McCain in Florida (believable) and only a two-point Obama lead in Virginia (less believable). Mason-Dixon, with the exception OF Florida, has had a decided GOP lean in its numbers vis-a-vis other pollsters. Indeed, they were the last pollster to give McCain a lead in Virginia (doing so a few weeks ago). Thus, in their Virginia numbers, Obama +2 is actually a five-point GAIN for Obama.
In all, we get new numbers in 13 states. Using our momentum tracker (this set of polls vs. the Pollster.com trend composite), we see that Obama beats the spread in 10 out of 13 states. McCain beats Obama in three states--but they are biggies (Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia).
ALASKA--Ivan Moore: McCain 53%, Obama 42% (Obama)
FLORIDA--Mason Dixon: McCain 46%, Obama 45% (McCain)
KENTUCKY--Rasmussen: McCain 52%, Obama 44% (Obama)
MAINE #1--SurveyUSA: Obama 54%, McCain 39%, Others 3% (Obama)
MAINE #2--SMS Group: Obama 51%, McCain 39%, Others 3%
NEVADA--CNN: Obama 49%, McCain 43%, Others 5% (Obama)
NORTH CAROLINA #1--CNN: Obama 51%, McCain 46%, Others 2% (Obama)
NORTH CAROLINA #2--WSOC-TV: Obama 48%, McCain 46%, Others 2%
OHIO--CNN: Obama 49%, McCain 44%, Others 5% (Obama)
PENNSYLVANIA--Muhlenberg: Obama 52%, McCain 41%, Others 2% (McCain)
SOUTH DAKOTA--Mason Dixon: McCain 48%, Obama 41%, Others 3% (Obama)
TENNESSEE--Rasmussen: McCain 54%, Obama 42% (Obama)
VIRGINIA #1--Mason Dixon: Obama 47%, McCain 45% (McCain)
VIRGINIA #2--CNN: Obama 51%, McCain 44%, Others 5%
WEST VIRGINIA #1--Rainmaker Group: McCain 42%, Obama 41%, Others 2% (Obama)
WEST VIRGINIA #2--CNN: McCain 53%, Obama 41%, Others 4%
WISCONSIN #1--St Norbert College: Obama 51%, McCain 38%, Others 4% (Obama)
WISCONSIN #2--Research 2000: Obama 52%, McCain 41%, Others 4%
NON-PRESIDENTIAL POLLING
Headlining this set of downballot data is a poll on the Washington Governor's race that may be a little TOO good to be true. After being a toss-up all campaign (and maybe even edging by a point or two to "GOP Party" candidate Dino Rossi in the last month), Elway has Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire up double-digits. Some thoughts: (1) This seems high, and Elway's presidential poll did give Obama a record lead there. HOWEVER, Obama's lead was 19. While that is higher than anyone else has the state, it is not way out of range (most polls have had Obama up 10-15 points in Washington). With this in mind, Gregoire probably has a lead. (2) There has been a scandal of sorts surrounding Rossi (that has been documented in these parts). Perhaps news of that sort has drained Rossi of some of his support.
In other news, Tom Allen remains just out of reach in Maine, and it is probably not close enough to call it a competitive race. Rasmussen pours a little frigid water on the Lunsford upset in Kentucky. Ethan Berkowitz looks good in Alaska, and is Maine's open 1st seat a little closer than we thought??
AK-SEN--Ivan Moore: Mark Begich (D) 46%, Sen. Ted Stevens (R) 45%
AK-AL--Ivan Moore: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 51%, Rep. Don Young (R) 43%
KY-SEN--Rasmussen: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) 50%, Bruce Lunsford (D) 43%
ME-SEN #1--SurveyUSA: Sen. Susan Collins (R) 54%, Tom Allen (D) 43%
ME-SEN #2--SMS Group: Sen. Susan Collins (R) 57%, Tom Allen (D) 36%
ME-01--SMS Group: Chellie Pingree (D) 43%, Charlie Summers (R) 32%
ME-02--SMS Group: Rep. Michael Michaud (D) 60%, John Frary (R) 26%
NC-GOV #1--Civitas: Beverly Perdue (D) 43%, Pat McCrory (R) 43%, Others 3%
NC-GOV #2--WSOC TV: Beverly Perdue (D) 44%, Pat McCrory (R) 44%, Others 5%
NC-SEN--WSOC TV: Kay Hagan (D) 44%, Sen. Liddy Dole (R) 43%, Others 4%
WA-GOV--Elway: Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) 51%, Dino Rossi (R) 39%
As always, give this a rec and a tip if you thought it worth your while. Also, if you know of recently released polls that I have somehow missed, feel free to hit the comments section and enlighten us all.
Thirteen days left to go...Happy Wednesday, everyone.