The third debate has come and gone, and once again Democrats are in anticipatory mode. While there seems little doubt that Mitt Romney was outclassed by President Obama in the final debate, the same was true in the second debate, and the presidential polling scarcely moved.
This time around, will a debate win that was viewed as more decisive in some polling equal a more palpable impact on the electorate? We are still days away from knowing the answer to that question, and it is worth noting that none of today's 42 separate polls provide any definitive answers. The reason? Virtually none of them are based on post-debate interviews. However, there are conflicting signs (based on the post-debate "snap polls") as to a future impact, if any, from the battle at Boca Raton.
More on that after the jump. For now, though, on to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL POLLING:
NATIONAL (ABC/WaPo Tracking): Romney 49, Obama 48
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 51, Obama 46 (LV); Romney 48, Obama 47 (RV)
NATIONAL (IBD/TIPP Tracking): Obama 47, Romney 45
NATIONAL (Ipsos/Reuters Tracking): Obama 47, Romney 46 (LV); Obama 46, Romney 42 (RV)
NATIONAL (PPP Tracking): Romney 49, Obama 47
NATIONAL (PPP for Daily Kos/SEIU): Obama 48, Romney 48
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney 50, Obama 46
NATIONAL (UPI/CVoter): Obama 48, Romney 48
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama 48, Romney 46 (LV); Obama 47, Romney 45 (RV)
CONNECTICUT (Rasmussen): Obama 52, Romney 45
CONNECTICUT (SurveyUSA): Obama 53, Romney 40
FLORIDA (Mellman Group for Americans United for Change): Obama 47, Romney 47
MINNESOTA (Rasmussen): Obama 51, Romney 46
NEVADA (American Research Group): Obama 49, Romney 47
NEW HAMPSHIRE (American Research Group): Romney 49, Obama 47
NORTH DAKOTA (Essman/Research): Romney 57, Obama 32
UTAH (Key Research): Romney 71, Obama 20
VIRGINIA (Mellman Group for Americans United for Change): Obama 46, Romney 45
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
AZ-SEN (Anzalone Liszt for the Carmona campaign): Richard Carmona (D) 45, Jeff Flake (R) 41, Marc Victor (L) 5
CT-SEN (Hamilton Campaigns for the DSCC): Chris Murphy (D) 46, Linda McMahon (R) 40
CT-SEN (Rasmussen): Chris Murphy (D) 48, Linda McMahon (R) 47
CT-SEN (SurveyUSA): Chris Murphy (D) 47, Linda McMahon (R) 43
FL-SEN (PPP for local media outlets): Sen. Bill Nelson (D) 45, Connie Mack IV (R) 41
IN-SEN (Global Strategy Group for the Donnelly campaign): Joe Donnelly (D) 40, Richard Mourdock (R) 38, Andy Horning (L) 8
MN-SEN (Rasmussen): Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) 56, Kurt Bills (R) 33
ND-SEN (Rasmussen): Rick Berg (R) 50, Heidi Heitkamp (D) 45
PA-SEN (GS Strategy Group for Fight for the Dream PAC--R): Sen. Bob Casey (D) 44, Tom Smith (R) 44
UT-SEN (Key Research): Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) 61, Scott Howell (D) 22
NH-GOV (Univ. of New Hampshire): Maggie Hassan (D) 43, Ovide Lamontagne (R) 35, Others 4
UT-GOV (Key Research): Gov. Gary Herbert (R) 65, Peter Cooke (D) 19
CA-52 (Grove Insight for the Peters campaign): Scott Peters (D) 45, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R) 40
FL-10 (Global Strategy Group for the DCCC): Rep. Dan Webster (R) 43, Val Demings (D) 41
FL-22 (Anzalone-Liszt for the Frankel campaign): Lois Frankel (D) 47, Adam Hasner (R) 37
IL-13 (Anzalone-Liszt for the DCCC): David Gill (D) 48, Rodney Davis (R) 39
MI-03 (Public Opinion Strategies for the Amash campaign): Rep. Justin Amash (R) 50, Steven Pestka (D) 36
MN-02 (SurveyUSA): Rep. John Kline (R) 49, Mike Obermueller (D) 41
NY-23 (In-House Polling by the NYS AFL-CIO): Rep. Tom Reed (R) 50, Nate Shinagawa (D) 45
NY-25 (GBA Strategies for the DCCC): Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) 53, Maggie Brooks (R) 43
UT-01 (Key Research): Rep. Rob Bishop (R) 62, Donna McAleer (D) 20
UT-02 (Key Research): Chris Stewart (R) 46, Jay Seegmiller (D) 20
UT-03 (Key Research): Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) 68, Simon Sorenson (D) 15
UT-04 (Key Research): Rep. Jim Matheson (D) 43, Mia Love (R) 43
WA-01 (SurveyUSA): Suzan DelBene (D) 47, John Koster (R) 44
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...
Today's polls, on balance, were decidedly "meh" for the president. Mitt Romney's infinitesimal advantage from Monday (a "lead" of 0.2 points) did spread out today a bit, but only a bit. His "lead" today stood at 0.8 percent, but it is worth noting that of the eight polls released today, five of them showed improvement for Obama (Ipsos/Reuters, PPP/DK/SEIU, Gallup, UPI/CVoter, and YouGov), while four of them showed improvement for Mitt Romney (PPP tracking, ABC/WaPo, IBD/TIPP, and Rasmussen). Thus, while there was movement towards Romney for the second day in a row, it certainly feels more like float than a distinct movement, given that there was no uniformity of movement between polls.
Of course, with the third presidential debate now in the books, folks on both sides of the aisle are waiting to see if President Obama's debate win will yield a seismic change in the electorate. The second debate (also largely viewed as an Obama win) did little more than halt Romney's brief spurt of momentum, so that would seem to indicate that perhaps the "coin flip" election scenario was already baked in after the first presidential debate in Denver.
Looking at the post-debate "snap polls", however, there are at least some indicators that there are legitimate reasons for optimism in Camp Obama. In the CBS poll of undecided voters, for example, they gave President Obama a wider margin of victory in the debate than Mitt Romney enjoyed after the first debate in Denver. More notably, pre-debate, the sample was split evenly: 24 percent leaned Obama, 20 percent leaned Romney, and the majority were completely undecided. Post-debate, what was a four-point Obama "lean" became a fourteen-point Obama "lean" (46-32).
In addition, PPP's post-debate snap poll, done entirely in what our polling pals defined as "swing states", found two meaningful stats for the president. They found that he had won the debate pretty comfortably, and they found that the panel supported Obama in the election after the debate by a modest (51-46) margin.
However, that same poll did show some problematic signs for Obama. There was, post-debate, essentially no change in respondent's views on whether they were more or less likely to vote for either candidate. On that score, Obama (37 more, 31 less) was only incrementally better than Romney (38 more, 35 less). What's more: among Independent voters, Romney did measurably better on that score than did the president, implying that Obama's overall edge came from his ability to preach to the Democratic choir.
Today's Ipsos-Reuters post-debate poll found something very similar to PPP, in that respect. Both polls see a perilous scenario for Democrats: in short, the scenario where Obama clearly wins debates, but does not actually change voter opinion. The Ipsos-Reuters panel clearly gave Obama the debate win (48-31). However, again, the "more positive/less positive" metric was virtually identical for both men, as both of them wound up +3 on that score after the debate. There were marked differences here with Independents to Romney's advantage, but the sample size here was so miniscule (n=61) that it is scarcely worth mentioning.
So, ultimately, we have a classic case of conflicting evidence. By the end of this week, we should have a much clearer vision of how the debates played. Obama might be hamstrung by a media narrative that seems insistent on defining last night's debate as a "wash", but with 59 million people watching it for themselves, media narrative is not necessarily everything.
In other polling news...
- The oddest polling memo of the day, bar none, has to be the one for Nate Shinagawa done by the New York State affiliate of the AFL-CIO. We got it early this morning, and noted that it showed a very close race between Shinagawa and freshman Republican Rep. Tom Reed. But what really caught our eye was the fact that the memo claimed the poll was done by Public Policy Polling. The problem: it revealed results down to the tenths, and the memo...well...looked nothing like PPP's work. Later in the day, a corrected memo was released, saying it was an in-house poll by the AFL-CIO. Do they now have a polling operation? Like I said, odd. Though nominally good news for Shinagawa.
- As regular readers know, our policy here is simple: with one lone exception (Zogby's internet stuff, which crapped the bed in three consecutive cycles and earned the SMU-esque "death penalty" from the Wrap), everything goes into the Wrap. Thus, a word of caution about those "Key Research" House polls in Utah. The sample sizes, for what it is worth, are absolutely tiny. They oversampled UT-04, and even at that, only had 200 respondents for a MoE at plus-or-minus...wait for it...7 percent. But that's actually better than the other three districts, where only 100 respondents (MoE around 9 percent) were tallied. Even more odd: their statewide polling had 500 respondents. So...they counted UT-04 (which, given that redistricting just happened, is the same size of the other three districts) as twice the value of the other three. No one has ever earned an automatic DQ from the Wrap, but this comes damned close.
- My favorite stat of the day has to come from the ABC/WaPo tracking poll. Most everyone hyped the fact that what was a 1-point Obama "lead" became a 1-point Romney "lead." But, as a later set of tweets confirmed, the race is just a tad closer than that. The actual figures? Romney 48.51, Obama 48.44. So, in retrospect: about two people changed their minds. Mitt-mentum!