Morning Polls

This morning is the first point at which we're seeing tracking polls that are made up of totally post-VP debate interviews. And they do not show any substantial change in the nature of the race. I had speculated yesterday that we would see Obama's lead in the Gallup tracker decline a little bit today. It did not. Gallup moves from Obama +7 to Obama +8 and he remains at the important 50% threshold. Rasmussen moves from Obama +7 to Obama +8 and Obama has hit 52% in their tracker for the first time. Hotline moves from Obama +7 to Obama +6. R2000 holds steady at Obama +12. Democracy Corps has a poll out this morning showing Obama up by just 3 nationally. Zogby (for what this is worth) has a national poll out showing Obama up by 4 nationally.

A SurveyUSA poll in NH shows Obama up by 13. Say goodnight in NH. Along with Michigan, New Hampshire was probably McCain's best hope of picking off a state Kerry won in 2004. The next best hope? Pennsylvania. The Morning Call tracker in Pennsylvania shows Obama up by 11 this morning (up from 10 yesterday). So no real movement there. Suffolk has a poll out in Virginia that has Obama up by 12 (not a typo) there. More importantly, a SUSA poll in Virginia has Obama up by 10 (also, not a typo). The only slightly negative poll at the state level this morning is an Albuquerque Journal poll that shows Obama up by just 5 points. That is more narrow than it has been so we'll have to wait and see if others show movement towards McCain in NM.

Finally, Nate Silver has a piece out this morning taking a closer look at those Georgia registration and early voting numbers that show big increases in voter registration and early voting among African-Americans in particular. In short, he lays out the argument for why Georgia may well be a real target for Barack Obama and what the trends in Georgia mean for other southern states and what they mean for Senate races in the south (R2000 shows Chambliss in a dead heat against Democratic challenger Jim Martin and Elizabeth Dole is in big trouble in North Carolina). To add to what Silver says, R2000 has a Georgia poll out this morning that shows Obama down 7 and has African-Americans as 27% of voters there. As Silver points out, if African-American turnout is greater than that (say 29-31), Georgia quickly becomes a tossup.