Sunday, September 28, 2008

Post debate polling update

Today is the first day any of the daily tracking polls have data from after the debate. The daily tracking polls are three day rolling averages. In other words the polling outfit surveys the same number of people every day, but reports the average of the last three days as their daily tracking poll number. Thursday's tracking poll released to the media is actually the average of Monday's, Tuesday's and Wednesday's daily results. The big players here are familiar names like Gallup, Rasmussen, Hotline, and Research 2000.

Progressives everywhere were heavily anticipating the results from today's tracking polls to see how the number was trending. Today is the first day that a post-debate survey (Saturday) would be factored into the result. Any significant move would lead one to think that bigger numbers might be on the way once we reach Tuesday, when all three polling days that constitute the tracking poll will be from after the debate.

Lets look at todays numbers with yesterday's in parenthesis.

Gallup
McCain --- 42 (44)
Obama --- 50 (49)

Rasmussen
McCain --- 44 (44)
Obama --- 50 (50)

Hotline/Diageo
McCain --- 42 (43)
Obama --- 47 (48)

Research 2000
McCain --- 43 (43)
Obama --- 50 (49)

One thing we see is either movement towards Obama or no movement at all. This is very good news for Obama supporters. McCain now finds himself down 5-6 points across the board. He needed a game-changer Friday night and did not get it. In fact early evidence suggests a modest move towards Obama post-debate.

What does the FiveThirtyEight model suggest?

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