Contradicting yesterday's FL polls from Quinnipiac and ARG, which showed Obama up +4 and +5 respectively, Rasmussen has a new poll out this morning that shows McCain up 47-39. This shows only minor movement from his previous poll (5/19) that had McCain up 50-40.
This poll, conducted 6/18/08, was of 500 LV and is +/- 4%.
Rasmussen in particular focuses on whether offshore drilling might give Huggy Bear an advantage, noting that 61% here believe that drilling would lower oil and gas prices while only 34% disagree. Rasmussen then determines, in a bit of more or less above-board push polling, that being told that McCain favors and Obama rejects offshore drilling increases McCain's overall lead in FL by a few points.
What accounts for the difference between Rasmussen's poll today and those released by Quinnipiac and ARG yesterday? Well, poblano has previously suggested that Rasmussen may use a more fixed model of party identification, while other polling units capture the trend toward increased Democratic identification. Whether this is true in FL I don't know, but that is what one would suspect given the pretty dramatic differences: from +4 or +5 to -8 in one day shows some strong methodological differences between the polls.
-- Stu