While there are plenty of individual results for Matt Drudge to get
excited about (or for that matter the Huffington Post), the fact is
that the overall trend in this election is roughly flat, and has been
for about a week or so. That is bad news for the candidate trailing in
the race, which in this case is John McCain.
Five
of the eight tracking polls moved toward Barack Obama today; the other
three moved toward McCain. It's possible that there was a very slight
shift in momentum toward John McCain last week, and that it's been
counteracted by a similar shift toward Barack Obama after the Colin
Powell endorsement. It's also possible that we've simply been reading
too much into what amounts to statistical noise. Either way, our Super
Tracker thinks that Obama is now no more than half a point off his peak
numbers, which were realized earlier this month. John McCain needs to
begin closing these numbers, and soon.
There are lots of numbers
to pick through that the state level today, but few of them are wholly
surprising. CNN gives Barack Obama a sizable lead in Virginia, and
Mason-Dixon -- one of the few pollsters to call the state for John
McCain before -- now gives Obama a smaller one. On the other hand,
Mason-Dixon is the latest pollster to have Florida tightening. We
suddenly have a flood of West Virginia polling, and most of it suggests
that the state isn't likely to flip. For that matter, however, one of
McCain's reach states -- Maine -- does not appear to be tightening.
McCain
does get some decent results in the set of Zogby Interactive polling --
which, unfortunately for McCain -- you should probably take no more
seriously than this one.
We could stand to get some fresher numbers from Pennsylvania, but
Morning Call has been running a tracking poll there for about a month
now, and McCain hasn't been within single digits since roughly the 1st
of the month.
--Nate Silver