Sunday, October 12, 2008

Morning Polls

A slight narrowing of the race? Gallup moves from Obama +9 to Obama +7 and Gallup reports that Obama's lead has been "less than double-digits each day." Rasmussen moves from Obama +7 to Obama +6. Hotline moves from Obama +10 to Obama +8. R2000 moves from Obama +12 to Obama +13.

So is the race narrowing? Perhaps. Everyone expects the race will become a bit closer at the end (see Nate Silver's projections as opposed to current poll readings for example) but this might be a little early for that. We'll see tomorrow if a trend of narrowing continues. I suspect Obama's lead will hold steady or move up a little bit tomorrow but we'll see.

No major news on state polls this morning. Mason Dixon has Obama up by 2 in Nevada. The Morning Call tracker in Pennsylvania has Obama up by 12. Rasmussen has Obama ahead by 16 in California and another poll has Obama ahead by 18 in Delaware.

The Nevada poll raises an interesting scenario: Imagine that Obama wins all the Kerry states plus Iowa and New Mexico. That's 264 electoral votes. Then assume he wins Nevada and McCain wins all the rest of the battlegrounds. That's a 269-269 tie and throws the race into the House of Representatives ... and nobody knows what will happen there for sure.

It is an unlikely scenario if only because Obama would be more likely to win battleground states like Virginia or Colorado before he wins Nevada but it is possible ... and scary.

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