The latest Gallup tracking poll now fully incorporates McCain convention speech, and according to it, McCain has widened his lead to 5 points, 49-44 among registered voters. (Via Hot Air.)
This roughly agrees with yesterday’s USA Today/Gallup poll that gave McCain a 4-point lead among registered voters (50-46) . That lends credence to its stunning finding of a 10-point McCain lead (54-44) among likely voters.
Rasmussen gives McCain a smaller lead (47-46). Zogby (for what it’s worth), gives McCain-Palin the lead 50-46.
There’s a long way to go yet, but I’d certainly rather be up than down.
UPDATE: A reader points out this note on the Rasmussen poll:
For a variety of reasons, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll is less volatile than some other polls and always shows a somewhat smaller convention bounce than reported by others. This is primarily because we weight our results by party identification (see methodology). Looking at the data before adjusting for partisan identification, the Republican convention appears to have created a larger surge in party identification than the Democratic convention the week before. If this lasts, it could have a significant impact on Election 2008.
This goes a long way toward explaining why Rasmussen is seeing a smaller McCain lead than other polls; they weight their results by party affiliation to a balance that may no longer be accurate. Rasmussen currently uses a weight of 40% Democrat and 32% Republican, whereas Gallup is finding that party identification has moved to near parity. The note above doesn’t give any numbers, but suggests that Rasmussen might be seeing a similar shift.
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