As you have probably seen, Zogby has Obama back up by four (uh - make that five, sorry) points. Or maybe it is really 12? Come below to see what I mean.
Here is the key to Zogby's math:
Democrat Barack Obama gained 0.1 points, while Republican John McCain dropped 0.2 points in the latest three-day rolling average tracking poll. The undecided voters increased to 6.5%, up 0.2 points from yesterday.
McCain wins 87% of the Republican support, and Obama 84% of the Democratic support, and each candidate wins 11% of the opposing party's support, the survey shows. Obama continues to lead among independent voters - his advantage now stands at 16 points, 51% to 35%.
Now, he doesn't give you his partisan breakdown, so let's start with the R2K breakdown of 35% D, 26% R and 39% I or Other (not much difference in how they break vote-wise). If you plug R2K numbers into Zogby's partisan breakdown, you come up with a (drum roll, please) .... 52% Obama, 40% McCain.
In order to get Zogby's four point race - keeping in mind his 16 point Independent tilt to Obama, you need to have an almost 50/50 split between Ds and Rs (I calculated it at 31.5% each, so as to keep the Independent and Other numbers the same as R2K).
So ... like Pollster.com, fivethirtyeight.com and electoral-vote.com keep saying ... figure this is a 6 to 8 point race (or better) at this point.