Morning Polls

Today’s tracker updates are mostly positive for Obama. Rasmussen (which is the most stable of the 4 major trackers) moved from a tie to Obama +2 overnight. Gallup remained steady at Obama +3. Hotline moved from Obama +4 to Obama +6. Research 2000 went from Obama +6 to Obama +4. The big polling story at the national level is the ABC/Washington Post poll which has Obama up by 9 among likely voters (10 among registered voters). It is hard to find anything to worry about in that poll … except whether it is an outlier or a real measure of where the country is. Others do not have that kind of reading yet. NBC News/WSJ will be releasing their national poll tonight. If the ABC reading is accurate, McCain will have to go into full desperation (kitchen sink) mode immediately and that would affect the tone of Friday night’s debate.

Polling at the state level is a mixed bag today. Obama is solidifying leads in some states that used to be called battlegrounds like Iowa and Washington. The bad news is that there are 2 polls out showing Obama narrowly trailing in states he has to win. A Rasmussen poll in NH has him down by 2 and an MRG poll in MI has him down by 3. Marist also has a poll out in NH that has Obama up by 6 but I have a bit more faith in Rasmussen than Marist. As for the MI poll, I’ve never heard of this polling group and others have had Obama winning there by 4 – 5 points lately so I’m not sure I buy that one but we’ll see as more polls come out. There is also a Mason Dixon poll out in VA showing Obama down by 3 and that is not where we want to be. But others have that state different as well.

Finally, you heard it here first (maybe). Rick Davis, McCain’s Campaign Manager is going to have to go. I cannot imagine him staying with the campaign after the revelations in the NYTimes today that his firm (Davis Manafort – it is named for him) has been receiving $15K/month from Freddie Mac all the way up to last month … for no work in return. Every day Davis stays on the campaign, McCain’s campaign is going to be questioned about this. I can’t believe they haven’t fired him already.