Nate Silver:
The FiveThirtyEight “now-cast” now pegs Mr. Romney’s bounce as being 3.1 percentage points, compromising between the trackers and the broader group of polls. In addition, Mr. Romney had appeared to gain about one percentage point on Mr. Obama before the debate, so his overall standing has improved by almost four points in October.
However, the “now-cast” put Mr. Obama ahead by about five percentage points in advance of the debate, meaning that Mr. Romney’s gains are not quite enough to have erased Mr. Obama’s advantage entirely.
The strongest evidence that the race is a true dead heat right now is from national polls. The 10 national polls that we added to our database on Tuesday showed an exact tie between the candidates, on average.
Mr. Romney’s numbers are just slightly weaker in the majority of swing state polls, however. In the day just after the debate, Mr. Romney led in five of six polls between the top nine “tipping-point states,” but Mr. Obama has led in 10 of 14 such polls since then.
FWIW, the states remain stronger for Obama than the nationals. perhaps because that's where the campaign spent the money.
I remain a bit skeptical of the large Likely Voter - Registered Voter split in some of the polls, and think the RV might be a more real indicator of the state of the race. Romney's made gains there, but not as dramatically. In any case, razor thin race, at least until we get past debate week polling.
Charlie Cook:
More data are always a good thing, and there should be more reliable surveys--both nationwide and in swing states--released in the next day or so that will make it easier to pinpoint exactly how much Obama fell and Romney gained from the rumble in the Rockies.
Romney desperately needed a break, something to change the trajectory of this race, and clearly he got one in the debate. How much exactly the debate did and how much the surprisingly strong jobs report on Friday offset it will become more clear in the coming days.
Mark Blumenthal:
Gallup released its first polling results on the presidential race among respondents they consider most likely to vote. Among likely voters interviewed over the last week, they show Republican nominee Mitt Romney with a 2-point advantage over President Barack Obama (49 percent to 47 percent). Their results for all registered voters continue to give Obama a 3-percentage point advantage (49 percent to 46 percent), although that margin narrowed by 2 points compared to the previous day.
Separately, however, Gallup noted that interviews conducted Monday and Tuesday nights suggested that Romney's debate performance "may not have a lasting impact."
Nate Cohn:
Viewed collectively, the state and national polls conducted after the debate point toward an extremely close race, with Romney gaining an average of 3.4 points in post-debate polls. There does appear to be a split between the battleground and national polls and perhaps between live interview and automated methods, although those two factors overlap and there are not enough national or live interview surveys to make the comparison with confidence.
NY Times:
After a Pew Research Center poll on Monday that suggested Mr. Romney’s debate performance had helped him erase Mr. Obama’s lead nationally, a Gallup survey released Tuesday showed a similar result, with the candidates statistically tied.
But polls in battleground states appeared to show the race to be back where it was before Mr. Obama went on a run, and Mr. Romney stumbled, after their party conventions, with Mr. Obama for the most part holding slight but shrinking edges in surveys, within their margins of sampling of error.
Politico:
It’s now clear that Mitt Romney got a bounce from the first presidential debate. But pollsters warn that it’s far from certain how big or how lasting such a bounce will be.
The GOP presidential nominee certainly has momentum from his performance in Denver last Wednesday — but most of the gains being attributed to him are the result of a single poll released Monday by the respected Pew Research Center that showed a 12-point swing in Romney’s direction. That’s enough to start the cable talking heads and political scribes chattering but doesn’t necessarily mean a permanent groundswell of support for the Republican.