The media has absolutely fallen in love with the narrative that Romney is coming back and has a real good chance of winning. After Friday's polls, you saw the President's numbers at Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEightForecast hit their lowest in a long time-though even then they were over 60%. Silver had said it was getting close to a toss up.
As Talking Points Memo they were showing a prediction of only 253-234 for the President. However, over the weekend there are some decent signs that the Romney bounce may have hit a top-and of course tomorrow's the next debate.
There were some improved state polls over the weekend. One poll showed Obama with a 1 point lead in North Carolina and looking better in Colorado. A PPP poll showed the President still leading 51-46 in Ohio-though Romney had during the week, especially Friday, shown some state gains, in Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina, there were no Ohio polls that showed him leading there.
Gallup on Saturday argued that the bounce may be now subsiding or at least that it has topped out. Nate Silver has talked about the divide between state and national tracking polls-the latter showing some-quite modest leads-for Romney though the President seems to have maintained a small but persistent state lead.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/oct-14-breaking-the-state-national-poll-stalemate/
Today, however there were a few national polls that did show Obama up nationally among likely voters. These polls are both highly regarded and indeed, now put the President ahead on TPM's polltracker.
"President Barack Obama holds small leads among likely voters nationwide, according to two polls released Monday morning, although Mitt Romney remains in striking distance."
"One poll, from ABC News and the Washington Post, shows Obama leading Romney 49 percent to 46 percent, little change from their survey in late September that showed Obama up by 2 points. Thirty-seven percent of likely voters have a more favorable view of Romney following his performance in the first debate in Denver, compared with a mere 8 percent who now have a more positive impression of the president. But 72 percent said the debate did not change how they view Obama, and 47 percent indicated that their views of Romney were unchanged."
"Likely voters give Obama the edge — by varying margins — on a slew of policy areas: the economy, international affairs, taxes, health care and Medicare. As has been shown by a number of national polls, Romney’s only advantage over the president is with the federal budget deficit. By a 9-point margin, likely voters prefer Obama over Romney to handle an unexpected major crisis."
"Fifty-five percent of likely voters said they consider Obama honest and trustworthy, while 41 percent said he is not. Views of Romney on that front are sharply polarized: 47 percent of likely voters said the Republican nominee is honest and trustworthy, compared with 47 percent who said he is not."
"The president’s lead among likely voters in Monday’s other national survey, the Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll, is even smaller, 49 percent to 48 percent. That’s identical to the Politico/GWU poll released last week. But while Obama holds a slim lead nationally, Romney claims a small edge across 10 swing states. Among likely voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, Romney leads Obama by 2 points."
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/obama-small-leads-national-polls.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Huffington Post today had a piece that shows the President does indeed retain his state firewall.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/2012-polls-obama-battleground_n_1966564.html
He also has a huge lead among early voters, which explains the desperation of the Ohio GOP to reverse a decision allowing it to continue sending us back to the bad old days of 2004 when Democratic voters waited in huge lines, some not voting until the next day.
While there are caveats to this, there is enough to suggest the President 's numbers have stabilized now and may be rising. All he needs to do is give us a decent debate performance tomorrow night and I think Denver is put to bed.
What he's said over the last week is encouraging: he understands that he wasn't aggressive enough two weeks ago and that he let multiple opportunities slip through his fingers. He also seems to get that what he has to do is make the case that Romney is not a moderate but simply trying to spin himself a moderate veneer: in truth he's running on the most Right wing platform in over 100 years-when was the last time a Republican Presidential candidate actually ran on ending the New Deal?
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