A new SurveyUSA poll shows John McCain taking a decent lead in one battleground state: Missouri.

The numbers: McCain 50%, Obama 43%, with a ±4.3% margin of error. Three weeks ago, Obama had a statistically insignificant lead of 45%-43%. The race here has a very stark gender gap: Men go for McCain 60%-36%, and women for Obama 50%-41%.

This state has 11 electoral votes, and has voted for the winner in every presidential election over the last 100 years except for 1956.

An Obama aide sent me this front page from today's Southeast Missourian -- a sign that visits like yesterday's stop in Cape Girardeau, in the swing state of MO, may start garnering him the sort of general-election-has-begun local coverage he's looking for.

Click on the image to enlarge...

Today Obama hits Michigan, and expect to see more of these visits in coming days.

A new Rasmussen poll of Missouri shows that this key swing state could be poised to go Republican this time around:

McCain (R) 50%, Clinton (D) 41%
McCain (R) 53%, Obama (D) 38%

The brutality of the Democratic race could be having an effect here: Barack Obama's favorable rating is at only 47%, Hillary's at 45% — and John McCain's at 59%.

A new set of polls by SurveyUSA shows that Barack Obama's electability has taken a serious drubbing as a result of his recent setbacks, and he now does much poorer than Hillary Clinton does against John McCain in the three tested states:

Ohio
Clinton (D) 50%, McCain (R) 44%
McCain (R) 50%, Obama (D) 43%

Missouri
McCain (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 46%
McCain (R) 53%, Obama (D) 39%

Kentucky
McCain (R) 53%, Clinton (D) 43%
McCain (R) 64%, Obama (D) 28%

The internals show that in all three cases Obama gets a smaller share of the white vote than Hillary does, without room for his improvements among African-Americans to make up the difference.

(Via MyDD)

Late Update: One thing also worth noting is that these polls were conducted before Obama's speech yesterday on race relations, so we simply don't know yet what impact it might have in turning these numbers around.

So what do the final polls forecast for today? Well, the predictions for the key states are that Hillary Clinton will win California and Missouri — and that Barack Obama will win California and Missouri:

California

SurveyUSA: Clinton 52%, Obama 42%

Zogby: Obama 49%, Clinton 36%

Missouri

SurveyUSA: Clinton 54%, Obama 43%

Zogby: Obama 45%, Clinton 42%

So there you have it: Two pollsters, each with pretty good track records, giving wildly different poll results for today. Obviously they can't both be right, and there's at least a decent chance that they're both wrong. We'll find out the truth of the matter tonight.

Late Update: Another thing to consider is that a large number of ballots have already been cast by mail. SurveyUSA gives those to Hillary by a wide margin, while the widely respected Field Poll registered a one-point edge to ... Obama. In short, there simply isn't any real way to know right now if any of these polls are accurately predicting the outcome.

This morning's Zogby polls show John McCain on track for some big victories tomorrow, with California being the only real trouble spot:

California:
Romney 40% (+3)
McCain 32% (-2)
Huckabee 12%

Missouri:
McCain 35% (-1)
Huckabee 27%(+0)
Romney 24% (+2)

New Jersey:
McCain 52% (-2)
Romney 26% (+3)
Huckabee 7% (+0)

New York:
McCain 53% (+4)
Romney 19% (-4)
Huckabee 8% (+0)

This morning's set of Zogby tracking polls shows Barack Obama with clear momentum in the key primary states, with apparent leads in both California and Missouri, plus a big one in Georgia:

California:
Obama 46% (+1)
Clinton 40% (-1)

Georgia:
Obama 48% (+0)
Clinton 31% (+3)

Missouri:
Obama 47% (+4)
Clinton 42% (-2)

New Jersey:
Clinton 43% (+0)
Obama 43% (+1)

Zogby credits Obama's movement to a "big Sunday bounce," but we'll find out soon enough whether that keeps up into Monday and, most importantly, the Tuesday election itself.

With the Democratic race fast shifting to a national contest, the campaigns are ramping up their buying in the Feb. 5th states. The Edwards camp, for instance, announced on a conference call an "aggressive" new ad buy in 10 states over the next 48 hours.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is rolling out a series of state ads, including one in Missouri starring Obama backer Claire McCaskill...

...and another in Arizona starring Janet Napolitano:

A new SurveyUSA poll of Missouri shows Hillary Clinton well-situated to pick up the state in a general election:

Clinton (D) 50%, Giuliani (R) 43%
Clinton (D) 51%, Thompson (R) 42%
Clinton (D) 50%, Romney (R) 41%
Clinton (D) 51%, Huckabee (R) 40%
Clinton (D) 48%, McCain (R) 45%
Clinton (D) 54%, Paul (R) 32%
Gore (D) 49%, Giuliani (R) 44%

Also, a hypothetical Al Gore match-up with Rudy Giuliani would seem to indicate that any other strong Democrat, not just Clinton, could take the state's electoral votes.

A new SurveyUSA poll in Missouri finds John Edwards to be the most electable of the top three Democrats in the key swing state of Missouri. In addition, the top three Democrats all generally fare well against three Republicans, with only one GOP win in the nine match-ups:

Giuliani (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 45%
Clinton (D) 48%, Thompson (R) 45%
Clinton (D) 51%, Romney (R) 40%
Obama (D) 46%, Giuliani (R) 44%
Obama (D) 48%, Thompson (R) 45%
Obama (D) 51%, Romney (R) 40%
Edwards (D) 47%, Giuliani (R) 42%
Edwards (D) 50%, Thompson (R) 40%
Edwards (D) 56%, Romney (R) 32%

The good polling news for Hillary keeps on coming this morning, with a new round of polling from American Research Group showing her ahead in Georgia and Missouri.

Hillary leads Obama in Georgia by 10 points, 35%-25%, with Edwards at 17%. And in Missouri she has 40%, with Edwards in second at 22% and Obama at 15%.

Meanwhile, among Republicans, Fred Thompson is beating Rudy in Georgia, 35%-25%, and statistically tying him in Missouri, where Rudy has 23% to Thompson's 22%.