The breakdown for Sept. 18

Starting today, the breakdown will move from the right column to a regular daily post. This will make it easier to look back at the numbers from previous days.

Today's the sort of day that I made this site for. If you only look at the top level numbers, today was a bad day for Obama. He dropped from being down ten point (247-257) yesterday, to trailing by 31 points today (243-274). When you look a bit deeper, though, things don't looks so bad. In fact the best case scenario for Obama has improved considerably today compared to what it was yesterday.

If the election were held today and...

	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama:	354	184
...all Obama <5% went to McCain:	188	350
Shift since yesterday:	+32	+12
Shift this week:	+2	+22

For reference, here are yesterday's numbers:

	Obama	McCain
...all McCain <5% went to Obama:	322	216
...all Obama <5% went to McCain:	200	338
Shift since yesterday:	0	2
Shift this week:	-33	+28

(Counting All leaners/ties/opponents <5%)

The real number is somewhere in between.

(See this post for a detailed explanation of these numbers.)

One important thing to keep in mind: All these polls polls were taken before the worst of the most recent financial meltdown, and before McCain's most recent recitation of his mantra, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong". While most Americans grasp of economics may not be as strong as we would like, it doesn't take a graduate degree in economics to know that McCain is blowing smoke. Even his absurd attempts to redefine "fundamentals" to mean "workers" are falling flat. McCain has 26 years of efforts to deregulate as much as possible, so his attempts spin himself as suddenly pro-regulation are likely to fail just as badly. I suspect that this means that McCain's post-convention surge is going to be fading fast.

Of course, remember... I was the guy who said that there was no way that Americans would be stupid enough to vote for George W. Bush (Twice even!), so take all my punditification with a gigantic grain of salt.