Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama leading McCain 51-41. All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with the R2K numbers from today (yesterday's numbers in parentheses) and the other trackers from yesterday (previous day's data). LV=likely voter, RV=registered voter.
Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight.com) wrote up a tracking poll primer covering the eight available trackers. It includes sample size, time of publication and quirks, as well as Nate's opinion of the trackers. Recommended.
Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV
Today
Research 2000: 51 (50) 41 (42) 3 LV
Reuters/Zogby: 52 (50) 42 (42) 2.8 LV
Rasmussen: 51 (50) 45 (46) 2 LV
Diageo/Hotline: 47 (47) 42 (41) 3.4 LV
Battleground: 49 (48) 47 (47) 3.5 LV Poll goes back to 10/14 and to 10/20
Gallup: 51 (52) 42 (41) 2 RV See also the LV I and LV II numbers
IBD/TIPP: 46 (47) 42 (41) 3.3 LV alternate link
ABC/WaPo: 54 (53) 43 (44) 3 LV
Fox: 49 (46) 40 (39) 3 LV (10/10 RV)
AP/GfK: 44 (48) 43 (41) 3 LV
F&M Nat'l Poll: 50 (43) 45 (45) 3.5 LV
Yesterday
Pew: 52 (50) 38 (40) 2.5 LV
Ipsos/McClatchy:50 (48) 42 (39) 3.5 LV
NBC/WSJ: 52 (49) 42 (43) 2.9 RV
On successive individual days in the R2K poll (different than the topline, which is a combined three day sample), Obama was up +8 Sun, +9 Mon and +12 Tues. Today's polling will not completely reflect Colin Powell's endorsement (or the less important but still politically potent announcement of Obama's 150 million Sep. fundraiser) but reflective data on that is included for today's poll.
Zogby:
Three big days for Obama. Anything can happen, but time is running short for McCain. These numbers, if they hold, are blowout numbers. They fit the 1980 model with Reagan's victory over Carter -- but they are happening 12 days before Reagan blasted ahead. If Obama wins like this we can be talking not only victory but realignment: he leads by 27 points among Independents, 27 points among those who have already voted, 16 among newly registered voters, 31 among Hispanics, 93%-2% among African Americans, 16 among women, 27 among those 18-29, 5 among 30-49 year olds, 8 among 50-64s, 4 among those over 65, 25 among Moderates, and 12 among Catholics (which is better than Bill Clinton's 10-point victory among Catholics in 1996). He leads with men by 2 points, and is down among whites by only 6 points, down 2 in armed forces households, 3 among investors, and is tied among NASCAR fans.
In the R2K poll, we are following party allegiance:
And as for independents:
And note the senior vote (worried about McCain's age and Palin in the wings, the economy, or both?)
Click the links for Daily Kos write-ups on yesterday's influential Pew and NBC/WSJ polls, both of which slammed Palin's fitness for the ticket. From NBC/WSJ:
"Voters have reached a comfort level with Barack Obama. The doubts and question marks have been erased," said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster who conducts the poll with Republican Neil Newhouse.
Yesterday's tracker polls (including the Battleground one pointer) look like this on pollster.com's graphs:
Adding Pew, NBC/WSJ and Ipsos/McClatchey (don't you love these user-generated graphs? They made them for folks like you and me!) we get:
We turned the sensitivity up so you can see why we say there's no tightening here. Regardless of the statistical inferences, we think it's not a politically significant change. And with each day that drops off the calendar, that's an Obama advantage.
From ABC/WaPo's tracker this fun chart:
Obama does better in every demo than Kerry did... except liberals. Go figure. And look at those new voters! And young whites? God bless 'em (and go talk to your grandparents.)
Do note the Tracker Primer Nate wrote and posted. Here's what he said about R2K:
Research 2000 / Daily Kos
When Publishes: Early AM, usually about 7:30 Eastern time.
Key Specifications: ~1100 likely voters, 3-day rolling sample.
Track Record: Research 2000 has an above-average track record, although this is the first time they've run a national tracking poll.
House Effect/Lean: Aggregating all of Research 2000 polls in this general election cycle -- including their tracking results plus their state polling for both Daily Kos and the myriad newspapers that they contract with -- they have had a slight Democratic lean of 1-2 points. However, the lean has appeared to be stronger in their national tracker, and less strong (in fact, almost nonexistent) in their state polling.
Features/Strengths: Full set of cross-tabular results published each day. Poll tends to be fairly stable, in part because they use a fixed party ID weighting (Democrat +9). Research 2000 is the only pollster to publish each individual day's results in addition to the rolling average.
Quirks/Concerns: Racial demographics are aggressive -- probably too aggressive -- showing blacks making up 14 percent of the electorate and Hispanics another 13 percent. Turnout will be up among minorities this year, but probably not by quite that much. The +9 party ID split is arguably also aggressive, although within the broad range of what other polls have found this year.
No quibbles; as it happens we posted this on 9/25:
Pollster D R I (Dem-Rep)
Research 2000: 35 26 30 +9
Diageo/Hotline: 41 36 19 +5
Rasmussen: 39 33.5 27.5 +5.5
Gallup: 35 26 33 +9
ABC: 38 28 29 +10
NBC/WSJ: 43 36 16 +7 (text says +8)
Fox: 41 34 21 +7
Rasmussen is now 39.7 D and 33 R (they review their split every week). Hotline yesterday had the D-R-I at 41-37-17. As we know, this is one of the key factors in whether a poll is tight or not. No one knows the exact answer (see exit polls) as to what the splits should be, but R2K is in the mainstream on this question. As for the racial demographics as well as the youth split, time will tell as to how off or accurate the poll is relative to others and the exit polls. Wherever you think these should fall, we encourage as much transparency from the pollsters as possible, so you can find and compare.