This morning's Rasmussen daily tracker still shows McCain leading by 3, although both candidates have gained a point, so that it is now M 50, O 47.
The bad news, as Rasmussen notes, is that this is the first time McCain has hit 50 since Obama wrapped up the Democratic nomination. The good news, if there is any, is that McCain's very large day on Thursday (September 11th) will drop out of the tracker tomorrow. Our resident daily number crackers can chime in, but it would seem that McCain may have had a small lead at most in the dailies for Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow's numbers should be closer unless for some reason he has another big day today.
Two state polls of note to discuss, with seemingly contradictory results. As was reported late last night, the Des Moines Register has had an Iowa poll with good news, Obama up 12, at 52 to 40. This poll was taken last Monday to Wednesday, which, as the original diarist notes, is also good news. Particularly encouraging is Obama's 49 to 36 lead among independents.
On the other hand, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has just released new MN numbers showing the two candidates dead even at 45 a piece. This poll was conducted September 10th-12th, when one would have hoped that the bounce was starting to fade (although, again, Rasmussen's 9/11 numbers suggest that the fade, if it has been happening, has not been doing so on a linear path). I could not find full cross tabs, e.g. Party ID for this poll, which was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International (PSRAI).
I would be surprised if there were too many more state polls released on a Sunday, but one never knows. I am going to try to get into our local office here (I'm in FL) at some point today to either make some calls or enter some data.
-- Stu
Update As GT notes in comments below, Rasmussen has shifted his Party ID weighting for the second time in September. Previously he had been changing Party ID numbers only once a month; he seems to feel that the RNC-Palin bounce has caused another. Actually, the way it is worded makes it sound like this has not taken effect yet and will enter into the results for this coming week.
[Edit: That would include today, that is, the change will have started with today's results, September 14th.]
For polling data released during the week of September 14-20, 2008, the targets are 38.7% Democratic, 33.6% Republican, and 27.7% unaffiliated. For the previous week, the targets were 39.7% Democrat, 32.1% Republican, and 28.2% unaffiliated.
(Rasmussen had already revised D numbers down on September 1st.)