What the Polls Seem to Be Saying With 2 Weeks to Go

      At the present they are very tight. We've seen over the last 5 days that Gallup has been an outlier among the national, tracking polls in giving Romney a huge lead among likely voters-52-45. The other polls are mostly about 2 points either way.

      We did finally get an outlier in Obama's favor with the release of the latest tracking poll from IBD/TIPP yesterday which shows the President with a 6 point lead. At this point you presume it's an outlier-though who knows? Maybe this will prove to be harbinger...

     The President also leads in most swing states though the exact margin is in for some debate. According to the Huff Post poll Tracker, the only swing states the President probably trails in are Florida and North Carolina. Though many have argued that Virginia is decisively in Romney's corner, this is not what the Huff Post shows: according to them Obama still has a 57% chance of being ahead right now.

     While Gallup is an outlier, the one thing it shows that is consistent with other polls is an "enthusiasm gap." Hopefully this has begun to change since last Tuesday's debate but right now you're consistently seeing polls where there is a 5 point gap between registered and likely voters. In the NBC/WSJ poll yesterday while there is  a dead heat between likely voters-47-47-the President leads among registered voters 49-44.

      So we just need to get Dems motivated like they were in September when we saw the enthusiasm gap tighten. Is it possible that IBD's poll began to show this? It's certainly too early to tell that, but it'll be interesting to see if it continues to show this-Obama had a lead of only 2 points with IBD on just Friday.

      UPDATE: A new poll shows Obama up 3 points nationally:

       "The poll, conducted by Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner on behalf of Democracy Corps, shows Obama leading Mitt Romney nationally 49 percent to 46 percent. Obama leads despite a plurality of voters indicating that Romney would do a better job on the economy and that the Republican nominee has better plans for the national economy. Fifty percent of voters surveyed approve of the job Obama is doing as president, compared with 48 percent who disapprove."

       http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-obama-leads-by-3-nationally-despite-romneys

       This pushed Obama ahead on TPM's Poll Tracker by a 48.1 to 46.6 margin. So we'll see if any more polls show this: if so it may be that the gap is tightening. Again, we need more polls to substantiate that, but this is the second we've seen in the last day now. We'll see if there are more.

       P.S. I don't get this idea that Romney is favored on the economy-I don't get why so many believe this. However,, even so, it's not nearly as conclusive as that simple sound bite might suggest. More Americans feel bettter about the ecnomy than they did until the Democratic convention. While in the first 5 months of the general election two thirds said the economy was headed in the wrong direction this has lowered considerably though it's still high. However many more think the economy is improving and 51% believe the President deserves at least some credit for that.