Morning Polls

The main trackers remain fairly steady today with one exception and that might give one the impression that not much has changed in the last few days. I think that perception is wrong. First, let’s get to the numbers:

Rasmussen remains at Obama +6. Hotline remains at Obama +5. R2000 goes from Obama +6 to Obama +7. But Gallup moves from Obama +5 to Obama +8. Three of the four trackers (Rasmussen, Gallup, and R2000) now have Obama at 50%, a key threshold given that some voters remain undecided in all the polls. Additionally, this is the first day all of the trackers include only data since John McCain “suspended” his campaign and it includes one night of post-debate interviews. It seems clear that, at a minimum, the debate has not had any positive effect for McCain. But I think the real key here was what happened on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. McCain’s widely-covered cancellation of his interview with Letterman, his hedging on whether he would show up for the debate, the perception that he created more trouble than anything else in the bailout negotiations, and the Palin/Couric interview would seem to be what is driving Obama’s numbers higher. Views of the candidates may well be hardening.

Again, this is the most consistent (very little variance between them) we’ve seen the four trackers all year and it is surely the highest average we’ve seen from all four trackers including the period following the Democratic Convention. I expect we’ll see new national polls coming out from the major networks in the next 24-48 hours and my guess is those will be positive numbers for Obama as well.

The Obama campaign would like to remind you that the Biden/Palin debate is on Thursday night and the McCain campaign would like to remind you that there will be some exciting postseason baseball action on television that night.