In terms of volume, this was a very quiet day at the polls. In terms of potential signals about the election, the classification of Saturday, October 18th, is much less clear.
We have the "six pack" of tracking polls (more on this change in a minute), and they tell a potentially turbulent story. Aside from that, we have just 18 individual polls. What do they tell us? Sadly, not very much. Not only aren't there very many of them, but virtually all of them are three-days old or more, which does not tell us much about the possible movement we have seen in the last two days.
Follow me.
PRESIDENTIAL: NATIONAL AND TRACKING POLLS
First, there were four. Then, they were five. Now, there are six. I have decided to add IBD/TIPP to the average for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was under the impression that they (like Battleground) did not publish daily. Turns out, they are a daily tracker. Second, I had not heard of the pollster. Upon review, not only did they poll the 2004 elections, they had a pretty decent track record.
For the sanity of the folks who live and die by the Obama margin in the polls, it is probably a good thing that I added them today. The reason? They are one of only two pollsters showing movement in the direction of Obama. Their seven-point edge is a two-point improvement over yesterday. Rasmussen also shows a tick upward for Obama, going from 50-46 yesterday to 50-45 today. Worth noting, discounting leaners, the Obama lead has actually doubled in two days. On Thursday, it was 47-44 Obama. Today, it is 49-43 Obama.
And, in the trackers, that ends the good news. Research 2000, as was expected, dropped precipitously today (from O+10 to O+7). Hotline/Diageo did the exact same thing, dipping from 50-40 Obama to 48-41 Obama.
Gallup may well have had the strangest day. For the second straight day, Obama's lead among registered voters edged upward. Today, that lead stands at Obama 50, McCain 42. However, Obama LOST ground in the Likely Voters II model (which is the one I have been using for the average), going from a 51-45 lead yesterday to a mere 50-46 lead today. Among the "Drudge" likely voter model, the race stayed at 49-47 Obama for the third straight day.
Zogby's tracker continues to confound. It continues to McCain and Obama doing very well with their party bases, and Obama with a wide lead among independents. Yet, it continues to show a fairly close race (48-44). Clearly, Zogby has grown convinced that there is a massive wave of unenthused, silent Republican voters that are bound and determined to show up on Election Day. Here is a little "back of the envelope" math for you: if you apply the Rasmussen party ID model (D 39-R 33-I 28) to the Zogby vote totals by party, you get a seven-point Obama lead.
In all, Obama maintains an average lead of 5.7%. This is a drop of a full point from yesterday (I have gone back and included IBD/TIPP trackers for the past week). It is also the closest the race has been, according to the trackers, since the day after the first presidential debate (9/27).
So, what is going on here? Let's consider the possibilities, from the extremes to the middle.
- THE "BUYERS REMORSE" ARGUMENT--This is the Chicken Little/We're Doomed Theory. The essential ingredients of this article is that voters, confronted with the likelihood of an Obama presidency, are starting to experience some trepidation. If this theory were to hold, the assumption is that the race would continue to close, and perhaps rapidly, leading us into pure toss-up status sooner rather than later. I am dubious about this theory. Were it true, we would see some dramatic shift in McCain's favorables and Obama's unfavorables. We have not seen that yet.
- THE STATISTICAL NOISE ARGUMENT--This is the favored argument of the "the fundamentals of this election are still strong" theory. This is the theory that states that most of the trackers are still in a fairly tight and predictable range, and thus there is really nothing to the movement of the trackers over the past two days. While this theory is more plausible than the first theory, it is still a touch unconvincing. Today was McCain's best day in over a month, and this is the closest the race has been all month. It is hard to chalk that up to coincidence, since there was a major news-creating event (the 3rd debate) this week.
- THE BASE RETENTION ARGUMENT--This is the basic theory that Nate Silver posited over at 538 today, and this one has pretty good evidence to support it. Rather than paraphrase the artist formerly known as Poblano, I'll quote him directly:
"What I think we may be seeing are some improvements in Republican enthusiasm. Prior to the debate, McCain was having a very rough go of things in the media, as the only stories seemed to be the ineffectiveness of his attacks on Bill Ayers, and the nonresponsiveness of his campaign to the economy. In the polls that measured these things, there was evidence that enthusaism was very low among McCain supporters. A conservative voter, having little real message to latch on to, and seeing McCain far behind in the polls, might have been telling pollsters that he wasn't sure if he was going to bother to vote, and therefore might have been screened out by likely voter models, which all of the tracking polls are now using.
According to this theory, we might see some marginal further tightening in this race, but then McCain will hit a wall, because there won't be any Republicans left to convince. There is some evidence to support this: both Zogby and Hotline noted that McCain has done quite the job of consolidating Republican support this week.
- THE "CONTROL THE NEWS CYCLE" ARGUMENT--This theory is where my supposition lies, along with the base retention argument. McCain has done a pretty decent job of controlling the media narrative since the debate. In that sense, he has successfully pulled off an arduous task: the task of taking a third subpar debate performance off of the table.
Think about it, on Thursday and Friday, instead of writing the epitaph of a campaign whose last attempt to change the game had fallen by the wayside, the press was hunting for Joe the Plumber (who was all-too-quick to heap praise upon the senior senator from Arizona), reporting on McCain's return to Letterman, and commenting favorably on his performance at the Al Smith Dinner.
Ultimately, this theory is dependent upon his ability to continue to control the newscycle. It appears that the trifecta of Sarah Palin (I am in California, by the way. She was just here, so I guess we're pro-American after all), Michele Bachmann, and Colin Powell might dampen his ability to control the narrative.
TRACKING POLLS
Research 2000: Obama 50%, McCain 43%
IBD/TIPP: Obama 47%, McCain 40%
Diageo/Hotline: Obama 49%, McCain 42%
Rasmussen: Obama 50%, McCain 45%
Gallup: Obama 50%, McCain 46%
Zogby: Obama 48%, McCain 44%
PRESIDENTIAL: STATE-BY-STATE POLLS
Very little to report on here. There are a few polls, but it is worth noting that all but the Muhlenberg College Pennsylvania tracking poll were in the field before the final debate. By the by, Muhlenberg continues to tighten, but that might be a result of some very good Obama days dropping off the tracker.
Obama gets a confirming result in Wisconsin, which looks to be fairly one-sided. We also get a public poll in North Carolina and a Democratic poll in Florida giving Obama leads in those two critical battleground. I also am adding the Alaska result which R2000 gave us late last night.
So, all in all, just six statewide polls to report today. In our momentum tracker (this poll vs. the Pollster.com trend composites), we see Obama beating the spread in just two of them, while McCain beats the spread in four of them (albeit two of them very narrowly).
ALASKA--Research 2000: McCain 57%, Obama 38%, Others 2% (McCain)
FLORIDA--Hamilton (D): Obama 47%, McCain 43%, Others 3% (McCain)
MAINE--Research 2000: Obama 55%, McCain 38%, Others 3% (Obama)
NORTH CAROLINA--Research 2000: Obama 46%, McCain 44%, Others 3% (McCain)
PENNSYLVANIA--Muhlenberg: Obama 52%, McCain 39%, Others 3% (McCain)
WISCONSIN--UW-Milwaukee: Obama 51%, McCain 36% (Obama)
NON-PRESIDENTIAL POLLING
There are an even ten polls today down the ballot. Quite peculiar, but almost half of them cover just two House races (KY-02 and CA-50). Quite a few internals here as well, and they are reasonably predictable.
AK-SEN--Research 2000: Mark Begich (D) 48%, Sen. Ted Stevens (R) 46%
AK-AL--Research 2000: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 50%, Rep. Don Young (R) 44%
CA-50--G.Q.R (D): Rep. Brian Bilbray (R) 44%, Nick Leibham (D) 42%
CA-50--Tarrance (R): Rep. Brian Bilbray (R) 48%, Nick Leibham (D) 35%
CO-SEN--Garin Hart Yang (D): Mark Udall (D) 52%, Bob Schaffer (R) 40%
IL-11--Anzalone-Liszt (D): Debbie Halvorson (D) 48%, Marty Ozinga (R) 29%, Others 5%
KY-02--SurveyUSA: Brett Guthrie (R) 51%, David Boswell (D) 42%
KY-02--Garin Hart Yang (D): Brett Guthrie (R) 41%, David Boswell (D) 40%
ME-SEN--Research 2000: Sen. Susan Collins (R) 53%, Tom Allen (D) 40%
NC-SEN--Research 2000: Kay Hagan (D) 49%, Sen. Liddy Dole (R) 45%, Others 3%
NC-GOV--Research 2000: Pat McCrory (R) 48%, Beverly Perdue (D) 43%, Others 3%
VA-02--Bennett Pitts (D): Rep. Thelma Drake (R) 47%, Glenn Nye (D) 42%
Those are the (few) numbers we see today. I know Maine is on the way at some point tonight Maine's numbers are now up on the front page. I'll update if and when I get new numbers. If you've got some from a local paper or source, let me know.
Have a happy Saturday.