Friday polling includes the Wednesday Palin speech but not Thursday McCain snoozer. Gallup had already shown a bigger Obama bounce than McCain is seeing, but there was a convention delay due to Gustav.
Numbers are Fri (Thurs) (Wed). Compare last week, the Friday after the Dem convention.
There was a +5 swing for Obama last week and a +3 for McCain this week if one compares day-to-day-to-day. The maximum Obama Rasmussen bounce wasn't seen until four days later (this Tuesday).
Rasmussen:
Rep Convention
Obama 48 (50) (50)
McCain 46 (45) (45)
Dem Convention
Obama 49 (47) (46)
McCain 45 (47) (47)
Gallup: By last Friday, Obama was already moving up +7 from the 45-44 the Tues prior. This week, McCain is so far +2 from the Wed prior. The maximum Gallup for Obama was 5 days later (this Wed).
Rep Convention
Obama 48 (49) (49)
McCain 44 (42) (43)
Dem Convention
Obama 49 (48) (45)
McCain 41 (42) (44)
Gallup says:
Support for Obama since just before the Democratic National Convention kicked off on Aug. 25 has ranged from 44% to 50%, while McCain's support has ranged from 41% to 46%. Whereas the race was initially tied at 45%, Obama pulled into an eight-point lead at several points over the course of his convention. It now appears the Republican National Convention may be helping McCain to recoup some of his losses, though with Obama's current four-point lead, the entire convention period to this point has still been a net plus for Obama.
What the pick says about McCain is really what matters. So far, what we are seeing is modest, not game-changing swings. The "offical" bounce is Monday after three days of post-convention polling. But the combo of the ABC poll, the trackers and the focus groups all say the same thing. Sarah Palin was a base pick, but does not play as well with everyone else, and regardless of whether people like her, she is not affecting the polling numbers at this time beyond what you'd expect to see from the conventions.
By this coming Tues or Wed, things should settle down to get an accurate read of the race. We really won't know until then what happened, but there's no data yet to say that the Republicans got an overwhelming game changer, as much as they and the talking heads would like to believe they did.
Update [2008-9-5 16:11:52 by DemFromCT]:: Nate Silver has more.