Rasmussen, Gallup Show McCain Gaining as Polls Tighten

Both Rasmussen Reports and Gallup have reported in the past 24 hours tighter national daily tracking polls.

This morning, Rasmussen Reports said that Sen. Barack Obama's national lead is down to three percentage points, 50 percent to 47 percent.

It is the first time in more than a month that Sen. John McCain has been so close.

Prior to today’s update, Obama had been ahead by four-to-eight points every single day for 33 straight days. During that 33-day stretch, Obama’s voter support had stayed between 50% and 52% every day while McCain was in the 44% to 46% range. It will take another day or so to determine whether today’s numbers reflect a lasting change or statistical noise. Two of the last three nights of polling show a closer race than was found in the previous month.

Of course, the problem for McCain is that it is not a national race, rather 51 individual contests for electoral votes. Rasmussen says Obama's electoral lead, when leaning states are included, is 313-174. Pure toss-up states account for the other 51 electoral votes. That is well above the 270 he needs to become the next president of the United States.

Gallup reported yesterday that Obama had a two percentage-point lead, 49-47, among likely voters using its traditional model. Gallup's "traditional" likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections.

In other polls released yesterday, GWU/Battleground had Obama up nationally by three percentage points, 49-46; Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby had Obama up by five percentage points, 49-44; and Diego/Hothline had Obama up by seven percentage points, 49-42.