After a series of pretty quiet weekends, we see the polling intensity tick up a little bit on this penultimate weekend before the election. We see a new national poll, our seven daily trackers, as well as 33 individual polls for your viewing pleasure.
The news today is that there is little here that is news. After a day when state polls looked marginally better for John McCain, today brings quite a bit of data that should concern the red team. And the national polls continue to paint a rosy picture for Barack Obama with just TEN days until Election Day.
Follow me.
PRESIDENTIAL: NATIONAL AND TRACKING POLLS
Only one national poll to report today, although it actually hit the wires late yesterday (I was already on the road for football at that point). Newsweek goes back into the field, switching their pool of respondents from registered voters to likely voters. It matters little to their final outcome, as they give Barack Obama a twelve-point edge, 53% to 41%. Registered voters, for those who care, would have made it a thirteen-point margin.
One proviso, this is a poll where the sample skews a bit Democratic (or at least, anti-Republican. When the sample was asked who they voted for in 2004, the breakdown was 51-49 Kerry. In a two-way tabulation, of course, the actual results were 51-49 Bush. So, if that is a four-point swing, the "real" state of the race would be about eight points, not twelve.
Of course, there could be a lot of dispirited Republicans electing not to vote, which would also account for that disparity.
As for the daily trackers, there is a lot of stability today. Four of the seven trackers held steady today, with IBD/TIPP, Research 2000, Diageo/Hotline, and ABC/Washington Post unchanged. Two pollsters move in the Obama direction, with Rasmussen (O+8) now giving Obama the biggest lead that they have given him all cycle long. Obama also picks up a point in the Gallup tracker (O+8). The only one to shed a point for Obama was Zogby, where Obama fell fractionally, making it officially a nine-point race.
NATIONAL POLLS
NEWSWEEK: Obama 53%, McCain 41%
TRACKING POLLS
RESEARCH 2000: Obama 52%, McCain 40%
ABC/WASHINGTON POST: Obama 53%, McCain 44%
ZOGBY: Obama 51%, McCain 42%
RASMUSSEN: Obama 52%, McCain 44%
GALLUP: Obama 51%, McCain 43%
DIAGEO/HOTLINE: Obama 50%, McCain 43%
IBD/TIPP: Obama 46%, McCain 42%
PRESIDENTIAL: STATE-BY-STATE POLLING
There is not a ton of state polling today, especially not in battleground states. What scant battleground polling there is, however, is not good news for John McCain.
The headline state is Ohio, where a pair of polls suggest that his deficit in the state against Barack Obama is probably real. The first blow came late last night, when PPP went into the state and found Obama staked to a seven-point lead. But the big blow might have come this morning, when the University of Cincinnati, which has been the pollster in the state that has been (by far) the most favorable to McCain, also had McCain trailing Obama, 49%-46%.
The other big headline today came from Colorado, where the Rocky Mountain News employs Republican pollster Public Opinion Strategies to do their surveys. So what did the GOP pollster have to say about the state of the race in Colorado??
Obama +12.
Other than that, the states you'd expect to be blue are blue (New York almost comically so). The states you'd expect to be red are red (although South Dakota is a bit closer than one might think).
All in all, data in fourteen states today. Using our tracker of momentum (measured as this set of data vs. the Pollster.com composite, Obama has a much better day today. Obama beats the spread in eight states, while McCain beats the spread in six of them. And two of those are Massachusetts and Illinois.
LATE UPDATE: Some late new polls. Arizona is actually close. Holy shit. Research 2000 polls for the St Louis Post-Dispatch, and has Obama leading in Illinois and (by a point) in Missouri. Research 2000 also does a media poll in Iowa. Obama +15, with McCain and Palin both there this weekend. Good scheduling, guys. A slightly dusty (one week old) college poll has Obama up just six in Minnesota.
ARIZONA--Myers/Grove (D): McCain 44%, Obama 40% (Obama)
ARKANSAS--Research 2000: McCain 52%, Obama 41%, Others 2% (Obama)
COLORADO--Rocky Mountain News: Obama 52%, McCain 40% (Obama)
ILLINOIS--Research 2000: Obama 59%, McCain 35% (McCain)
IOWA--Research 2000: Obama 54%, McCain 39%, Others 3% (Obama)
MASSACHUSETTS--Suffolk University: Obama 53%, McCain 34% (McCain)
MINNESOTA--St Cloud State University: Obama 43%, McCain 37% (McCain)
MISSOURI--Research 2000: Obama 48%, McCain 47% (McCain)
NEW JERSEY--Marist College: Obama 56%, McCain 39% (Obama)
NEW YORK--Marist College: Obama 65%, McCain 29% (Obama)
OHIO #1--PPP: Obama 51%, McCain 44% (Obama)
OHIO #2--U. of Cincinnati: Obama 49%, McCain 46%
PENNSYLVANIA--Muhlenberg: Obama 52%, McCain 41%, Others 2% (McCain)
SOUTH DAKOTA--Research 2000: McCain 50%, Obama 41% (Obama)
TENNESSEE--Research 2000: McCain 54%, Obama 38%, Others 3% (McCain)
NON-PRESIDENTIAL POLLING
Most of the downballot polling today comes from the D-Kos/R2000 series of polls, which are frontpaged. My favorite pollster of the day is Winthrop College, who had three slightly dubious presidential polls released yesterday. Their Senate polls?? Yeah, not so much, unless you believe that with less than two weeks until Election Day, more than half of the electorate is still undecided.
We see a rarity today, as well...a Republican internal poll!! Woo-hoo, it has been awhile. Ric Keller claims a lead in FL-08 in this internal, but when even your internal has you within the MoE, AND under 50%??!!?? Not so good.
FL-08--P.O.S. (R): Rep. Ric Keller (R) 47%, Alan Grayson (D) 43%
IN-09--SurveyUSA: Rep. Baron Hill (D) 54%, Mike Sodrel (R) 39%, Others 5%
MA-SEN--Suffolk Univ: Sen. John Kerry (D) 56%, Jeff Beatty (R) 19%, Others 6%
MO-09--Research 2000: Blaine Leutkemeyer (R) 47%, Judy Baker (R) 42%, Others 8%
NC-SEN--Winthrop: Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) 30%, Kay Hagan (D) 25%
NC-10--Research 2000: Rep. Patrick McHenry (R) 52%, Daniel Johnson (D) 37%
NH-SEN--Rasmussen: Jeanne Shaheen (D) 50%, Sen. John Sununu (R) 45%
NJ-SEN--Marist College: Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) 48%, Dick Zimmer (R) 41%, Others 1%
NJ-05--Research 2000: Rep. Scott Garrett (R) 47%, Dennis Shulman (D) 40%
NJ-11--Dem Internal: Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R) 47%, Tom Wyka (D) 38%**
SC-SEN--Winthrop: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) 32%, Bob Conley (D) 10%, Others 7%
SC-01--Research 2000: Rep. Henry Brown (R) 48%, Linda Ketner (D) 37%
SC-02--Research 2000: Rep. Joe Wilson (R) 47%, Rob Miller (D) 35%
SD-AL--Mason Dixon: Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (D) 62%, Chris Lien (R) 29%
SD-SEN--Research 2000: Sen. Tim Johnson (D) 57%, Joel Dykstra (R) 35%
TN-SEN--Research 2000: Sen. Lamar! Alexander (R) 59%, Bob Tuke (D) 37%
TX-10--Research 2000: Rep. Mike McCaul (R) 46%, Larry Joe Doherty (D) 42%, Others 4%
VA-SEN--Winthrop: Mark Warner (D) 40%, Jim Gilmore (R) 18%
(**)--From the comments. This poll appears to be more than a month old.
I'll update this as necessary. Oh, and if you get the chance, check out today's LA Times story about Early Voter turnout. If you are still feeling a tad pessimistic, that will perk you up.
Oh, and Sarah Palin is a diva. I know because someone in her OWN CAMPAIGN is telling anyone who will listen about it.