I am still not paying attention to the polls. With all the noise about McCain getting close, Obama is still trouncing him in the states that matter. If Obama can still NM, CO, VA and MT then McCain doesn't have a chance. Obama doesn’t need to win Ohio but he should maintain the states John Kerry won in 2004. I am sure PA will deliver for him come November. He has already agreed to pay the street money to the ward leader in Philly. That should be a home run.

...shows a continued close race...

Eric? You're just trying to aggravate people, aren't you?

You post about all five polls, but only include the one where McCain and Obama are tied in the poll tracker.

You're just baiting people, aren't you?

If the Democrats can bring a good number of the Undecideds Formerly Known as Hillary Voters home, John McCain is in very big trouble. And if they're lured back based on positions and platform, as Hillary urged last night, they won't be as susceptible to the substanceless kinds of attacks McCain has planned for the next two months, I would imagine, as some independents might be.

Thus the relentless GOP/MSM efforts to stymie any perception of emerging party unity.

There are two things that continue to bother me(not that anyone should care):

1) If smear campaigns work, then what does it say about us?

2) If Clinton backers still refuse to vote for Obama, then they need to come up with better reasons than I have heard so far. If they can't, then I will have to assume that they are racists and simply will not vote for a black man.

Carry on.

I approve of the objective headline. The rest of you guys, cut Eric some slack. If you aren't willing to offer constructive criticism of the reporting, check the name-calling at the door or please go elsewhere.

That is, the objective headline on the main page.

We are going to win Ohio.

Book it!

OMG NOOOOO!!!

HOW WILL I SLEEP TONIGHT??

Obama again takes the lead in the National Gallop Poll today!

Eric,

Race remains tight? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Obama is five pts ahead in PA AND NEVADA. 7 PT ahead in New Mexico. 1 pt ahead in Flordia, Ohio and Texas are toss ups. I think it is safe to say.
Obama is doing just fine.

P.S. Traditionally those states have always been close.

obama and his delusional backers have deprived of us our opurtunity to beat the republicans. hillary warned us america wasn't ready for a black president and the glass cieling for women is higher any how

Best round of state polls I've seen in awhile. If Obama somehow pulls off Ohio, it's all over. Otherwise it will come down to the Big 3 in the West (NV, NM, and CO) and we will all be up late, late, late on election night.

And kudos to geha714 and everything that Obama's up against. People keep saying "He should be further ahead..." I say it's incredible that he's in a halfway decent position to win.

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!

Oh, wait... Uh, on second thought... hmmm.... well, maybe not.

never mind....

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS FOR HILLARY !!!

are we still doin that ???

The CNN state polls for NM and NV are at odds with CNN's national poll showing a tied race. (CO and PA are consistent with CNN's national number).

With 20% undecided/other, the Akron poll of OH is either worthless or somewhat good news for McCain because undecideds are likely to break heavily against Obama like they did in the primaries from March 1 onward.

Rasmussen's tracker has McCain up 1 and Gallup's tracker has Obama up 1 so it's a tie in the tracking polls after 2 convention days.

It's all about four states...

1. Virginia (this is the big one)
2. Colorado (second most important)
3. New Mexico
4. Nevada

After that, all he has to do is retain Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota - and he comes out at 270.

Pouffle (sp?)gave a very, very interesting tutorial about:

(1)what accounts for daily "movement" in nat'l polls - especially Gallup's tracking poll (I think he called the "tracking poll the worst thing to happen to journalism in the last 20 years" - or something like that;

(2)what the Obama campaign is looking at in the states that must be won - down to the very specific demographics of those states and how Obama is performing w/those demographics.

He said other things, but I do think it might be good for TPM Election Central to think about how it reports polling data. It might want to have some sort of policy about deciding when numbers represent a "trend" as opposed to blips/noise. For example, a move from 45-44 (Obama) one week to 44-46 (McCain)the next week does not represent "movement" and therefore might not warrant a huge, bold headline. (Note: Especially since it is back to 45-44 Obama today).

If CNN is to be critiqued for irresponsible political "reporting," then isn't it important that online news try to do better??

Or are blogs/websites driven by the same market share concerns as cable news and daily newspapers??

In other words: what TadAllagash said...