After today's polling downpour, today amounted to a steady shower, with
39 polls getting added to the mix today. And, taken as a whole, the best way to define today's polls (besides, in many cases, "underwhelming") would be: strange.
After all, you know we have entered into a parallel polling universe when, on a pretty lousy polling day, Democrats are left scrambling into the arms of Scott Rasmussen for comfort.
As Gallup goes way off the radar (or, at least, so it seems), and the respected Marquette Law poll cracks the president hard in the kneecaps, leave it to the House of Ras to give the president his best numbers of the day.
The question now, of course, is whether those numbers are going to improve for the president in the immediate wake of the second presidential debate.
More on that when we scale the wall known as "the jump." For now, though, on to the numbers:
PRESIDENTIAL POLLING:
NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 51, Obama 45 (LV); Romney 48, Obama 46 (RV)
NATIONAL (IBD/TIPP Tracking): Obama 47, Romney 45
NATIONAL (Ipsos/Reuters Tracking): Obama 47, Romney 44 (LV); Obama 46, Romney 40 (RV)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney 49, Obama 48
NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama 47, Romney 46 (LV); Obama 48, Romney 43 (RV)
COLORADO (Grove Insight for Project New America--D): Obama 47, Romney 44
CONNECTICUT (Siena): Obama 53, Romney 38
MASSACHUSETTS (PPP for the League of Conservation Voters): Obama 57, Romney 39
MONTANA (PPP): Romney 53, Obama 43
MONTANA (Rasmussen): Romney 53, Obama 45
NEVADA (Rasmussen): Obama 50, Romney 47
NEVADA (Grove Insight for Project New America): Obama 50, Romney 43
NEVADA (SurveyUSA): Obama 48, Romney 45
NEW HAMPSHIRE (Rasmussen): Obama 50, Romney 49
NEW JERSEY (National Research for AFP--R): Obama 48, Romney 41
OHIO (SurveyUSA): Obama 45, Romney 42
WASHINGTON (PPP for Washington Conservation Voters--D): Obama 50, Romney 45
WASHINGTON (Rasmussen): Obama 55, Romney 42
WISCONSIN (Marquette Law School): Obama 49, Romney 48
DOWNBALLOT POLLING:
CT-SEN (Siena): Chris Murphy (D) 46, Linda McMahon (R) 44
HI-SEN (Voter/Consumer Research for the Lingle campaign): Mazie Hirono (D) 47, Linda Lingle (R) 43
MA-SEN (PPP for the League of Conservation Voters): Elizabeth Warren (D) 53, Sen. Scott Brown (R) 44
MT-SEN (PPP): Sen. Jon Tester (D) 46, Denny Rehberg (R) 44, Dan Cox (L) 7
OH-SEN (SurveyUSA): Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) 43, Josh Mandel (R) 38, Scott Rupert (I) 4
WI-SEN (The Feldman Group for the Baldwin campaign): Tammy Baldwin (D) 48, Tommy Thompson (R) 44
WI-SEN (Marquette Law School): Tommy Thompson (R) 46, Tammy Baldwin (D) 45
WA-GOV (PPP for Washington Conservation Voters--D): Jay Inslee (D) 48, Rob McKenna (R) 42
AZ-09 (Summit Research for the Parker campaign): Vernon Parker (R) 44, Kyrsten Sinema (D) 42
FL-22 (DCCC IVR Polling--D): Lois Frankel (D) 49, Adam Hasner (R) 39
FL-22 (PPP): Lois Frankel (D) 47, Adam Hasner (R) 44
IL-10 (Internal poll for the Dold campaign): Rep. Bob Dold (R) 46, Brad Schneider (D) 36
MI-06 (Hill Research Consultants of the Upton campaign): Rep. Fred Upton (R) 58, Mike O'Brien (D) 27
NE-02 (DCCC IVR--D): Rep. Lee Terry (R) 48, John Ewing (D) 44
NV-04 (Tarrance Group for the Tarkanian campaign): Danny Tarkanian (R) 50, Steven Horsford (D) 40
NM-01 (Albuquerque Journal): Michelle Lujan-Grisham (D) 51, Janice Arnold-Jones (R) 37
NM-02 (Albuquerque Journal): Rep. Steven Pearce (R) 55, Evelyn Madrid Ehrhard (D) 31
NM-03 (Albuquerque Journal): Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D) 58, Jefferson Byrd (R) 34
TN-04 (Myers Research for the Stewart campaign): Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R) 49, Eric Stewart (D) 44
TX-14 (Anzalone-Liszt for the Lampson campaign): Randy Weber (R) 46, Rep. Nick Lampson (D) 43
A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...
The biggest polling headline today was also the most disappointing, as Gallup dropped a hammer on supporters of the president this morning with their latest tracking poll, showing Mitt Romney leading President Obama for the first time in over a month among registered voters, and out to a gaudy six-point lead (51-45) with likely voters.
Gallup was not the only disappointing data point of the day, however. The Marquette Law School poll, which in a short time has become lauded as the "gold standard" poll in the Badger State, showed President Obama's fortunes in Wisconsin greatly compromised by the first presidential debate. What was once an 11-point lead had been winnowed down to a single point, according to the newest incarnation of the Marquette Law poll. What's more, the ML poll claimed that Democratic Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin was sucked into the undertow, and into a dead heat with Republican curmudgeon candidate Tommy Thompson. The YouGov weekly presidential tracking poll, meanwhile, showed a marked tightening of the presidential race, as well.
However, not all the news was bad for Team Obama. The overall movement of the tracking polls was far more equivocal, and when all was said and done, the average margin of the five polls released today was Romney +0.2, which was actually basically where it had been (and marginally better) than the day before.
And, oddest of all, the best news of the day came from...wait for it...the House of Ras. Rasmussen not only had Obama a point closer to Romney in their national tracker, they also had Obama up three points in their "swing states" tracking poll (50-47). They gave the president very narrow advantages in two critical battleground states (Nevada and New Hampshire), as well.
More bizarre: they had President Obama doing better in two of their state polls (in Montana and Washington) than our own polling partners at PPP (who, in a real head scratcher, had the president up by just five points in their poll in Washington).
The question now, of course, is whether or not yesterday's debate performance by Barack Obama (which, unlike debate one, was widely lauded) will move the needle back in the president's direction, as it was at the start of the month. There was a marked difference in the snap polls, to be sure. But will that translates to a shift in the "real polls"? There are competing theories on this answer:
The argument for an Obama post-debate bump:
1. Going on the offensive put Mitt Romney on the defensive, and that might be a game-changer. Democrats have spent most of the past two weeks trying to reassure themselves that Obama was in okay shape, because his favorability and job approval numbers are as good or better than they were pre-debate. The problem with that: that isn't what was moving the toplines. It was the improvement in Romney's fav/unfav numbers that were driving the post-Denver surge. For Obama to reclaim an advantage in the race, he needed to remind people of why they didn't like Romney very much to begin with. There were flashes last night where he may have succeeded.
2. Reassurance. Virtually every poll released today gave Obama the debate win. One of the schools of thought regarding the polling swoon the president has experienced over the past two weeks is that Democrats were disheartened after a mediocre debate performance which also did little to enthuse base Democrats. Last night, one could effectively argue, neutralized both of those problems. If you buy the theory that people like the president, and want to give him the benefit of the doubt, getting his swing back after a big stumble could move numbers.
3. The debate win was even bigger than it appears. Obama won the CNN snap poll over Romney, as well as the CBS poll of undecided voters, but he won them both only by single digits. However, the samples of both of these polls were incredibly favorable for Mitt Romney. The CBS sample, pre-debate, favored Mitt Romney over Barack Obama on the economy by a cartoonish 71-27 margin. Marginally, that is about 35-45 points more favorable to the GOP nominee than national polling samples have shown. Meanwhile, even CNN had to concede that their sample was about eight points more Republican than their average polling sample during this year. Therefore, when the public debate conversation goes beyond the conservative-leaning viewership of the debate, the impact may be bigger than we think.
The argument against an Obama post-debate bump:
1. Media narrative. Aided by those snap polls (and their conservative samples), the narrative after Denver was of a crushing Romney victory, and how the debate was sure to buoy his electoral fortunes. That, as it happened, proved to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since last night's snap polls did not have the gaping two-to-one margins of the post-Denver polls, the media narrative for this debate has been far, far more equivocal. Indeed, several media outlets have satisfied to call it a draw.
2. Time. One simple advantage that Romney had post-Denver that Obama will be denied is the fact that there were thirteen days between Denver and Hofstra. That mean that Obama had to wait almost two weeks to get his shot at redemption. The gap between last night's Obama debate victory and the third and final meeting between the two? Just six days. Half the margin. Therefore, Obama cannot build much of a wave before round three.
3. The "it's too late" argument. There is a school of thought, and it is not a totally implausible one, that the damage done in debate one is somewhat irreversible. The reason? Because Romney was allowed to look measured and reasonable. In other words, he was allowed to be unthreatening. He had two weeks to cement that image, which will now prove harder to dislodge. Of course, if the first argument for the debate bump is correct, this argument will be null and void.