Although we think that John McCain may still be in the midst of some sort of convention bump, so far there has been no real letting up of his improved performance in state-level polling:
Ignore, for a moment, the series of Internet-based polls that John Zogby released today. What else do we see?
We see John McCain continue to consolidate his advantage in red states like Utah and South Dakota.
We
see Nevada polling pretty close to the national averages, as it has all
year. Right now, our model forecasts a 2.2-point victory for John
McCain in Nevada, versus a 2.4-point victory nationwide. Just as was
the case when Barack Obama was leading in the national polls, the key
metric for determining resource allocation is not a state's standing in
the absolute sense, but where it stands relative to the national
numbers. Nevada remains an important state because it's polling so
close to the national averages. Conversely, something like Wisconsin,
though certainly winnable for John McCain, is polling about 7 points
better for the Democrats than their national estimate, which means that
it is unlikely to be a decisive state. New Jersey is also a good
example. We see some evidence that it has tightened (Marist
has him 7 points ahead among registered voters -- the version we will
use until the first debate -- but just 3 points ahead among likely
voters). But it is still polling at a considerable enough distance from
Obama's national averages that it is unlikely to serve as any sort of
tipping point.
We do see a couple of polls showing Obama's
numbers holding up reasonably well in the Pacific Northwest, though the
Elway poll in Washington is a bit weird. They split their sample into
two, using different phrasings for each group; half the sample was
asked a question that included the names of the VP candidates (e.g.
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden") and half got the top of the ticket only.
Obama led by 9 points with the veeps included and 6 points without.
Each of these are perfectly valid ways to ask the horse race question,
so we simply average the two numbers and combine the samples.
...As
for the Zogby Interactive polls, I tend to prefer to let them speak for
themselves. Obama ahead in North Carolina but 6-7 points down in
Virginia? I don't find that especially credible. Anyway, they're in our
model, but given a very low weight.
--Nate Silver