You know what was really aberrant about the polling that was released today?
The fact that, honestly, there was nothing about today's numbers that was all that aberrant. It is a very rare day, friends, when you get a pretty fair amount of polling, and none of it surprises you. No disappointments, but no pleasant surprises, either.
Today was like going golfing, and making par eighteen times.
On to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-45)
NATIONAL (PPP for Daily Kos/SEIU): Obama d. Romney (48-46)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (47-44)
IOWA (PPP): Obama d. Romney (48-43)
NEW HAMPSHIRE (Univ. of New Hampshire): Obama d. Romney (49-45)
NEW YORK (Siena College): Obama d. Romney (61-34)
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
FL-07—R (Cherry Communications for Mica): Rep. John Mica 55, Rep. Sandy Adams 17
NM-SEN (PPP): Martin Heinrich (D) 48, Heather Wilson (R) 43
NY-SEN (Siena College): Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) 62, Wendy Long (R) 25
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...
If you are a regular reader of the Wrap, I suspect you will arrive at the same conclusion that I did. Make a case for any of these nine polls offering what anyone that someone would call a "surprising" result.
Maybe ... just maybe ... you could make the argument that New Hampshire is a little closer to parity than we have seen as of late. But, frankly, the idea of Obama being a leader in the mid-single digits in the Granite State just feels about right. Martin Heinrich has been right in that wheelhouse in damned near every poll in New Mexico, so that one is also labelled as an "as-expected."
Even the crushing margin of defeat for incumbent Republican Sandy Adams at the hands of fellow GOP incumbent John Mica does not surprise, because a previous poll had a similar result, and even Adams' own polling somewhat pathetically made the argument that "hey, I am down double digits, but not nearly as bad as the other guy's poll says!"
Notably, Romney's bad week is not biting him on the polling ass.
At least, not yet.
In other polling news:
- One note on our Daily Kos/SEIU poll this week, conducted by our polling partners over at PPP. That was a really favorable sample for the GOP: only down one in the party ID, and a ginormous spread between liberals and conservatives. The gap between liberals and conservatives was wider in that sample than it was in the 2010 exit polls. If Romney cannot poke his way into a lead in our weekly polling with a sample that would seem to be in his comfort zone, I'd feel pretty comfortable saying, despite the minuscule margins, that Mitt Romney is not likely to be in the lead right now.
- Siena offers their monthly assessment of New York, and the numbers look flat awful for the GOP. Mitt Romney trails by one of his widest margins to date (27 points), and Senate contender Wendy Long is getting blasted by a better than two-to-one margin by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Neither of those outcomes are surprising (in keeping with today's theme), but that doesn't mean they don't have value. The value lies downballot. In short: I would be very nervous reading this poll if I worked on the campaigns of folks like Nan Hayworth, Chris Gibson, Ann Marie Buerkle and Tom Reed.