Chuck was on Hardball tonight pimping a meme straight from the Romney Team that Romney could run away with this thing. The theory goes something like this:
Romney made huge gains to bring this thing to even after the first debate, and while Obama stopped the slide n Debate 2, since things did not move back his way, the additional undecided voters will all go to Romney. This is a great argument, and t is especially compelling if you ignore the actual data.
National Level:
All four Telephone based tracking poles moved in Obama's direction today - all four. If you average the four, Romney is up by less than 1%. If you include the Rueters Internet based tracking poll, it s a dead heat.
The three static polls of the last week show the president ahead by less than 1 . However, the President has done markedly better with the live caller polls that also call cellphones.
State level:
The battleground picture is much better for the President. If we look at the states the President needs to get to 270, he has a 3% lead or more in all them if you exclude the "Fly by Night" Robopollsters with no track record. The President's position improves further if we emphasise live call pollsters.
More importantly, the President is in the "Re-elect zone" (48% or better) in most of these states.
The more salient question fr Chuck Todd is that if Romney can't get over his hurdle in the swing states before the second debate (his high point), how will he ever?