Closer

Despite the mainstream media's portrayal of the race, that Barack is running away with it, the polls we've been watching for months continue to tighten. Rasmussen moved to a 4% Obama lead today, and Gallups likely voter numbers have pulled even tighter.

The "traditional" likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections. Today's results show Obama with a two-point advantage over McCain using this likely voter model, 49% to 47%, this is within the poll's margin of error.

Zogby has moved in the other direction.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama has a 5-point lead over Republican John McCain in the U.S. presidential race, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/ZOGBY poll released on Thursday.

Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 44 percent among likely U.S. voters in the latest four-day tracking poll, up slightly from a 4-point lead on Wednesday. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

These numbers were collected in advance of last night's debate, for the most part.