From the Huffington Post:
Collectively, the new polls of the past 24 hours have done nothing to change the standings in the most crucial battleground states. Obama continued to hold leads of 2 to 3 percentage points in Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin, four states that currently combine with the states where Obama leads by larger margins to create a 277 electoral vote majority, seven more than the 270 needed to win.
Romney continues to lead in North Carolina and retain a narrow edge in Florida, states that would net him 233 electoral votes along with other states where Romney leads by larger margins. Those totals leave 26 electoral votes up for grabs in New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia, states where the tracking model shows Obama leading by very narrow margins of 2 percentage points or less.
Collectively, the trends of the past week provide a reality check to two myths that have emerged in recent campaign coverage.
The first is that Romney has been “surging” since the first debate. While the debate certainly boosted Romney’s standing in the polls, trends over the past two weeks have been negligible, with the leader seesawing nationally within a range of roughly one percentage point. Over the same period, the standings within the key battleground states have also remained constant. Other poll tracking models have shown the same patterns.
The second myth is that the national and battleground states polls have produced widely divergent results. If we use the state estimates produced by the Pollster tracking model in the nine key battlegrounds (Iowa, Wisconsin, Nevada, Ohio, New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, Florida and North Carolina) to create a combined total vote based on the turnout in each state in 2008, we show Obama leading in across all nine states by a slim 0.6 percentage point margin (47.8 to 47.2 percent as of this writing; the estimated margin would be 47.9 to 47.2 percent if based on the 2004 turnout).
New Ohio Polls
Time/SRBI – Obama 49, Romney 44
Lake Research – Obama 46, Romney 44
Rasmussen – Obama 48, Romney 48
Survey USA – Obama 47, Romney 44
Huffpost Pollster (aggregated) – Obama 48.5, Romney 45.8
