National Tracking Poll Thread

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Nomination bump (Newt/Rick people used to be undecided/Obama, now they are solidly committed to Romney), nomination bounce (indys are like, oh, I hear this Romney guy just got the nomination, I'll say him), or tax season effect (f***ing Obama taking my hard earned money)?

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That proves Gallup Is both a joke and using 2010 numbers for likely voters.

Technically it's a poll of registered voters but they may be weighting things weirdly.

They're also polling 40% on cell phones.

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Gallup, meanwhile, has Obama taking the lead over Romney 46-45.

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Heck of a Romney sample.  Which implies that Friday was a better Romney day than Thursday, when Rasmussen did those very good-for-Romney OH/VA/FL polls.

If he hits 50 in Rasmussen tomorrow, that will be his first ever 50% in their tracker or any other national poll right?

I do think some of this is a bounce, and particularly that Obama can regain some ground by being competent in the remaining debates.

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Rasmussen

Obama 48 (unc)
Romney 48 (unc)

At this rate we may actually get a few days where Democratic spin doctors start talking highly of the Rasmuusen poll and Republicans disregard it in favor of polls like Pew and PPP/Dailykos!

Yeah, over the last week there's been a major shift in party ID among respondents towards Republicans which had an impact on all the polls except for the ones (like Rasmussen) which have been weighting party ID in an R-favored way for some time.  So Rasmussen now has less of a house effect than it used to- this also shows up in state polls, like where they still have Obama up in Colorado, Iowa, and Ohio.

Also, this is Sat-Sun-Mon, which means it doesn't include the great day Romney had on Friday.  I'd thought Obama would get a lead again with that day dropping off the tracker.

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Romney has actually been improving in Gallup as post-debate days have dropped off the sample.  The result is that Gallup is looking awfully R now- did they re-fix their sample after that criticism over increasing cell phone and minority weighting?

In any case, it looks like Romney leads the national PV going into tonight's debate.