Morning Polls

Another day down, another day in which John McCain fails to close the gap.

Gallup tracker holds steady at Obama +10 (I am using the "Likely Voters II Model" like Nate Silver is). Rasmussen tracker holds steady at Obama +5. Hotline holds steady at Obama +6. R2000 moves from Obama +12 to Obama +11. Then there's the Battleground tracker which goes from Obama +8 to Obama +13. What in the world is going on there? I don't know. A new national poll from TIPP has Obama up by just 2 but that seems like an outlier at this point.

A bunch of state polls out this morning and ALL are good news for Obama:

Ohio (SurveyUSA) - Obama +5
Pennsylvania (SurveyUSA) - Obama +15
Pennsylvania (Muhlenberg) - Obama +13
Pennsylvania (Morning Call tracker) - Obama +13
Michigan (Quinnipiac) - Obama +16
Colorado (Quinnipiac) - Obama +9
Minnesota (Quinnipiac) - Obama +11
Wisconsin (Quinnipiac) - Obama +17
North Carolina (PPP) - Obama +3

Look, all this is just horrible, horrible news for McCain. Ohio has lagged behind other states in moving to Obama and yet, he has a 5-point lead there now. But the worse news is in the internals of that poll. SurveyUSA reports that 12% of Ohio voters have voted already and Obama is leading among early voters by 18 (not a typo). SurveyUSA also reports that Obama is losing by just 2 among white voters in Ohio. These are deadly, deadly numbers. Whatever McCain's "comeback" might entail, it is going to be against the headwind of votes already logged.

PPP has Obama up by 3 in North Carolina and Nate Silver has a piece out this morning on the new registration numbers in North Carolina. The takeaway point is that Democrats have continued to build on their registration advantage there and a disproportionate number of these new voters are young and/or African-American voters.

Colorado is also a deadly, deadly number. It is the second poll in a few days to show Obama with a lead like this (PPP had it at 10 points a few days ago). Colorado is a key "tipping point" state according to Nate Silver. I'll explain it again: Obama wins all of the Kerry states (you can't find one where he doesn't have a good lead now) plus Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado and that is it: game over.

Speaking of winning the Kerry states, there are three states Kerry won that are polled here where McCain is still hoping to pull an upset. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Obama has VERY healthy leads in all. And yet, where is McCain today? Campaigning in Pennsylvania. I haven't seen a poll where Obama leads by less than 10 in Pennsylvania in a while now. This is just more campaign malpractice from the McCain camp. But, in their defense, they don't have a lot of good options right now.