I think the Gallup Daily is a crap poll, and national polls don't mean much. For a realistic picture of the current state of the race, please see 538. However, for what it's worth, this is encouraging.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Democratic candidate Barack Obama has gained ground in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking average from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and now leads Republican John McCain among registered voters by a 48% to 42% margin.
See: See: http://www.gallup.com/...
From the article:
The latest three-day Gallup Poll Daily tracking average (Aug. 25-27) is directly coincident with the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, and is no doubt beginning to reflect the typical convention "bounce" that Gallup has observed in most party conventions in recent decades. There is a lag of sorts involved in the daily tracking; interviewing is conducted in most parts of the country before that evening's high-focus speeches have taken place. Thus, the current three-day average would reflect any impact of Monday night's speech by Michelle Obama, and Tuesday night's speech by Hillary Clinton, but would not completely reflect Wednesday night's lineup of speakers, such as John Kerry, former President Bill Clinton, and vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, nor the appearance on stage at the end of the evening by Barack Obama himself. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
Not sure if I agree with Dan Pfieffer about Gallup daily:
"The worst thing to happen to journalism in 20 years."
But I do think that this is not an accurate gauge of the state of the race. I say this because I don't think the gallup daily has very high external validity, but I would argue it has very high internal validity, so whatever crap they are measuring they are measuring it well, and thus produce very consistent results