Rasmussen Moves For McCain

Rasmussen operates the most stable, in my estimation, of polls. I like it because it is slow to change - something in their technique apparently buffers the daily fluctuations. Today it moves two points, after having shown a 5% Barack lead for the last two days, and an 8% lead for the two days before that.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Barack Obama attracting 50% of the vote nationwide while John McCain earns 47%. This is the first time McCain has been within three points of Obama in more than a month and the first time his support has topped 46% since September 24.

This represents a crack in the wall of Barack. Getting him to the fifty point range is significant, as George Stephanopoulos observed the other day, as his campaign believes he will finish with a lower vote total than what the closing polls indicate.

Prior to today’s update, Obama had been ahead by four-to-eight points every single day for 33 straight days. During that 33-day stretch, Obama’s voter support had stayed between 50% and 52% every day while McCain was in the 44% to 46% range. It will take another day or so to determine whether today’s numbers reflect a lasting change or statistical noise. Two of the last three nights of polling show a closer race than was found in the previous month. Obama is now viewed favorably by 55% of voters nationwide, McCain by 54%.