We have a couple of new swing state numbers in today, and they, along with the daily trackers, seem to indicate that Romney's post-debate bounce may be plateauing.
Here are the numbers, followed by my analysis.
Originally published at No We Can't Politics.
* COLORADO: Obama 47%, Romney 43% -- No previous poll (University of Denver)
* WISCONSIN: Obama 49%, Romney 47% -- Romney +5% in 2 weeks (Public Policy)
The Gallup tracking poll had Obama's lead holding steady at 3%, the Rasmussen tracking poll had Romney's lead holding steady at 2%, and the Reuters tracking poll had Obama's lead holding steady at 2%.
The 538 election forecast has Romney continuing to make gains. It now has Obama at 307.6 with a 78.4% chance of victory, while Romney is at 230.4 with a 21.6% chance of victory.
Romney has made clear gains nationally and in swing states, but it does appear as if his bounce has peaked as he is no longer making gains in the tracking polls and some pollsters (particularly Public Policy) have commented that the numbers they were seeing on Saturday had resorted back to pre-debate levels after Thursday and Friday delivered very bad numbers for Obama.
It's hard to say how much of this is simply the natural waning of bounces, particularly ones that are measured immediately after a major event, and how much of it has to do with the strong jobs report on Friday which countered the positive Romney news from the debate on Wednesday.
We will still need to see more data before we know where we stand, as most of the post-debate polls we've seen have been from Rasmussen, Gravis, and WeAskAmerica, firms that have shown Republican leans this cycle. Next week we should get new numbers from all the major pollsters. The numbers in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire will be especially important to watch, as those states have formed an Obama firewall of sorts, and Romney will need to break them before he can seriously have a shot at winning. That being said, the Public Policy poll showing Romney down 2% in Wisconsin is pretty important. If we see other pollsters revert Wisconsin back into the toss-up category, it changes the entire race, as Wisconsin would change the electoral math in major ways for both sides.
But for now, I think Democrats can take some comfort in the Colorado poll done by Ann Selzer (who, as I've said before, is one of if not the best pollster in the country). She found Obama up 4% in Colorado, which given the timing, is a particularly good number for him. Her poll also found that while Colorado voters overwhelmingly thought Romney won the debate (68% said Romney won, 19% said Obama), only 4% said that the debate caused them to change their mind about which candidate to support. What the debate has seemingly done is rally the troops -- Republicans are now more unified and enthused about Romney than they were prior to the debate, while Democratic enthusiasm seems to have dropped some.
Originally published at No We Can't Politics.