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Evening Polls: Obama Gambling On Georgia

There is new polling out in Georgia and Colorado, each of which shows the race tightening.

Rasmussen conducted the Colorado poll, which has Barack Obama with a 43-41 lead. That 2-point advantage is down from 6 points a month ago. But in Georgia, Insider Advantage has that state tightening to a single point; John McCain leads 44-43, with 6 points going to Bob Barr. Insider Advantage's prior poll in Georgia, which also included Barr in the match-ups, had John McCain ahead by 10.

Earlier this week, I ripped on the Obama campaign for designating Georgia as a swing state. No previous polling had shown Obama within single digits there -- a Rasmussen poll conducted the day after the primaries ended had it McCain +10. I doubt that the state is truly within the margin of error right now. But it is certainly close enough -- with the known unknowns of the Barr vote and African-American turnout -- to be included in Obama's ad buy, as the candidate is doing. This may also be a reminder that you can often infer something about a campaign's internal polling in a state before the public data catches up. The McCain camp, for their part, seems as pleased as a peach:

The McCain campaign on Thursday said they welcome Obama's expenditure.

"We're obviously overjoyed when Barack Obama spends money in a state that we are very, very confident that John McCain will carry in November," McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky said.
he's gotten an especially large bounce out of Appalachia

--Nate Silver