Campaign Diaries

The Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls are still, again, always stable and the presidential polls released today are not from the most exciting of battleground states:

• In Georgia, Rasmussen finds McCain leading Barack Obama 50% to 43%, with Bob Barr at 3% (53% to 44% with leaners). Last month, McCain was leading by 9% (11% with leaners). As is often the case in Southern states, Obama’s favorability ratings (46%) is higher than McCain’s (39%), but the differential is perhaps not as stark as we are used to.

• In New York, Obama’s lead is down to single-digits in a new Siena poll, 47% to 39% (down from a 13% margin in July). Barack Obama’s favorability rating is down to 54%, though that he still superior to McCain’s 49%.

• No surprise in Illinois, where Obama leads 53% to 38% - the margin remains the same when leaners are included.

• In Tennessee, a poll conducted by Ayres McHenry & Associates for Senator Lamar Alexander (and which I reported earlier) also tested the presidential match-up. McCain leads 51% to 36%.

The day’s finding, then: Georgia and New York are within single-digits. This is more expected in the former (no survey has found McCain leading by double-digits in Georgia since June - and that was Rasmussen) than in the latter (except for Siena’s previous delivery, the smallest margin recorded in summer polls from New York is 18%). Furthermore, the McCain campaign would not even dream of spending a dime in the Empire State, whereas Obama has invested in Georgia and devoted resources to a voter registration effort there.

But we did learn last week that Obama’s latest ad would not air in Georgia and Indiana. It is unclear whether Democrats are keeping up their investment in Georgia (we did soon find out that the Obama campaign was airing an Indiana-specific ad, after all), but if they are not McCain can certainly breath easier. Also note that Obama would probably need Bob Barr to be stronger than 3% in his home-state to clinch a victory here.

Meanwhile, in down-the-ballot polls:

• In the Minnesota Senate race (polling history), SUSA brings better news to Al Franken who cuts his losing margin by 6%. Trailing by 13% a month ago, he is now behind 46% to 39%. Of course, that still leaves Norm Coleman comfortably ahead. SUSA also tested Faris’s primary challenge against Franken and finds the match-up surprisingly close with many undecideds (45% to 27%).

• In the Georgia Senate race, Rasmussen finds a narrower-than-expected margin, with Senator Chambliss leading 48% to 43% against Democrat Jim Martin (50% to 44% with leaners). Last month, Chambliss led by 11%.

• In the Oklahoma Senate race, Sen. Inhofe leads 50% to 41% against state Senator Andrew Rice - but this is a poll commissioned (and released) by the DSCC and conducted by Benenson. In the past two months, Rice has reduced the margin by 11%, but note that a Sooner poll released in early August had Inhofe leading by 22%.

The numbers from Georgia are the same than those of the DSCC-commissioned poll released just last week. We have not yet reached the point at which we can include Georgia in the list of competitive Senate races, but Democrats are clearly more confident about their chances now that Jim Martin has won the nomination. And the key sign that we should at least keep an eye on Georgia is that Chuck Schumer appears very interested in contesting it - meaning Chambliss could soon be hit by negative ads funded by the DSCC. Georgia was the sleeper race in 2002, and Democrats would love nothing more than to avenge that painful loss.

Also consider that this is the first non-Rasmussen poll in months to find Al Franken within single digits! We have often discussed how all pollsters were showing Franken in a hole - all except Rasmussen - and SUSA was consistently finding Norm Coleman with a comfortable lead. If this survey is confirmed by other polls (perhaps that of Quinnipiac which I am guessing should be released soon), it could mean that Al Franken is finally starting to put the spring scandals behind him and that Norm Coleman is starting to get caught up in his own ethical problems (surrounding the rent of his Washington apartment). At the same time, Franken better be careful to not waste to much capital on the September 9th primary. Faris is hitting him with very tough TV ads, and an 18% primary margin is much narrower than expected.