Interesting Numbers From Rasmussen's Daily Track for 09/05

The race is exactly the same as it was on 8/23. Obama: 48, McCain: 46. This is a three point swing from yesterday which means that today’s numbers are roughly nine points than the day that rolled off, Tuesday. Don’t be surprised if tomorrow’s numbers are even better.

Here’s a great quote:

However, following the Wednesday night speech, voters are fairly evenly divided as to whether Palin or Obama has the better experience to be President. Forty-four percent (44%) of voters say Palin has the better experience while 48% say Obama has the edge. Among unaffiliated voters, 45% say Obama has better experience while 42% say Palin.

What’s the real problem with this? Obama isn’t running against Palin!!!

God, I would hate to be a pollster this year. After months of me worrying if they might be under-polling Democrats, they now have to worry if they’re under-polling Republicans.

During August, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Republicans increased two percentage points to 33.2% while the number of Democrats was little changed at 38.9%.

That gives the Democrats a net advantage of 5.7 percentage points, down two points from a month ago and down significantly from the double digit advantage they enjoyed in April and May.

[...]

These new results have very little to do with recent news events such as the Democratic National Convention or selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate. Interviews are conducted throughout the month and the vast majority were completed before these events dominated the news cycle.

Ok, so the new uptick in people calling themselves Republicans doesn’t include any Sarah Palin effects in GOTV yet. Assuming that she has energized the base (yeah, like that's a risky assumption) and will continue to do so, you would expect this to continue to slide towards Republicans. This represents possibly a fundamental shift in the electoral picture.

 

UPDATE: Gallup Track Similar. Obama 48, McCain 44. Two weeks ago in Gallup it was 45/45, so not quite as good, but again a three point difference from yesterday, meaning that yesterday's numbers again were about nine points better than Tuesday's. Gallup doesn't ask the "extra" questions that Rasmussen asks, and just breaks the poll down by demographic groups. And, unfortunately, those are aggregates by week, so to really gauge how the race stands post convention, we'll have to look at NEXT week's numbers. This week's aggregates have not yet been released.