This is everything from today, including the Quinnipiac numbers that we discussed earlier:
This
is generally a pretty good set of polling for Barack Obama. Abstract
these numbers for a moment. If you had told a Democrat a year ago that,
on the last day of July, their candidate would be ahead in Ohio and
Florida, well ahead in Pennsylvania , way ahead in California, tied in
Montana, within single digits in a couple of states that went really
red in 2000 and 2004, they'd be pretty thrilled with that set of
polling.
Generally
speaking, the national polls in this cycle have been somewhat more
favorable to Barack Obama than the state polling. Our projected popular
vote margin, which is based on principally on state rather than
national polling, has usually run a point or two behind the national
polling averages at RCP or Pollster.com.
That pattern has somewhat reversed itself now. Our model likes these state polls for Obama, even as the national trackers have shown his lead shrinking to 2 points and 1, respectively.
The most interesting result today might be from Kentucky, where Rasmussen
has Obama within 9 points once leaners are counted. Obama had trailed
by 16 points in Rasmussen's June poll of Kentucky, and 25 points in
May. There is no longer a big education/income gap in this election --
Obama has gained ground with lower-income, lower-education voters. That
doesn't mean that he's going to win Kentucky. But something like West
Virginia, where the candidates are already advertising since its
markets overlap with Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, deserves
monitoring.
The other interesting result may is Montana,
where Rasmussen now shows the race tied after having shown Obama with a
5-point lead four weeks ago. The underlying demographics of the state
still probably point to a McCain victory by a few points, but so long
as Obama is engaging the state and McCain is not, it has to continue to
rate as a toss-up.
--Nate Silver