CNN/Time released a poll showing Obama up 50-46 among likely voters in FL. In NC, Obama is down 1 point to Romney 48-47. However, SUSA released a poll showing the race tied in NC at 43, making the effective difference between the 2 candidates less than 1 point.
Brief thoughts:
Sorry ABC News/WAPO, there is no way Obama is down 1 point nationally while being up (second non-partisan poll in a row) in FL with an average of 49.5%, up by around 9-11 points in PA, and down less than 1 point in NC. Obama has to be up in the range of 4-7 points nationally for all of these data points to align.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
NC polls were tight throughout 2008 and actually Obama is running ahead of his 2008 numbers in the state at a similar stage of the race.
The interesting issue of how Romney's voucher plan impacts seniors, Romney/Ryan lead Obama by 6 points 51-45 among the senior demographic. That's not a good sign for Romney and is a very encouraging sign for Obama. Seniors voted for the GOP +18 in 2010 and nationally have trended towards Romney by 10-12 points. If the margin in FL is about half that, it indicates that Romney's message on medicare is scaring off a certain portion of the senior vote...all of this before we have fully engaged on the issue.
CNN polls make a big deal of the white v. non-white voter distinction. In FL, Romney/Ryan lead by 18 points among whites. In NC, their lead is 63-33. Obama's lead among minorities is +40 points.
I think all of this is a bit misleading because that Romney/Ryan margin includes a lot of registered Republicans (a majority of whom are white), and presumably most registered Republicans would align with their candidate no matter if Obama were black or white. For example, is Obama getting a larger % of GOPers than Kerry did in FL? Gore? Clinton? That information would be worth knowing. How many white Democrats are supporting Romney? Indies? How does that compare to prior years/campaigns?
How about how Obama is faring in terms of his 2008 performance among white voters? Same? Better? Worse? not clear from the data.
What is clear is that Obama looks to be running strong in FL and across key battlegrounds. Pretty good news for Day 1 of the GOP convention. Only 3.5 more days of them to deal with before we take it over.