Tick-Tock

++About two days exactly until Election day. Tomorrow, Catholic priests are supposed to read an anti-Obama letter from the pulpit by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Rev.Mike Huckabee cut an ad that says Christians would be turning against their faith and risking hellfire if they voted for President Obama, who just happens to be the only Christian running. The Electionopalypse is now in high gear. 

++The Des Moines Register conducted its last Seltzer poll. President Obama 47 to Romney 42. 

++PPP on Pennsylvania : Obama 52 to Romney 46. 

++PPP on Wisconsin: Obama 51 to Romney 48.

After the earlier polls tonight on Ohio, the toss-ups come down to Colorado, Virginia,North Carolina and New Hampshire, and Florida.

++The Obama campaign sent out a memo saying they had opened 5,000 Get Out The Vote staging areas in Swing States. They also have registered 1,792,291 new voters across battleground states,which is twice the number they did in 2008.

++If you wonder why some polls had Romney ahead on early voting, it is because the Northeast, which will vote for President Obama, does not have early voting and that many so-called "red states" do.However,in contested states like Nevada,Ohio,Iowa,and North Carolina it has been no contest.

++President Obama, Vice-President Biden, former President Clinton and Michelle Obama will be commuting to all the remaining "toss-up" states until election day. It has been announced Romney will travel to seven states in the next 48 hours. 

++I noticed President Obama is now accelerating his letters to raise money for House candidates. The Obama-Biden campaign seems to be giddy and the Romney campaign morose tonight. Conservatives are already blaming Chris Christie's effusive praise of President Obama as one of the reasons Romney will lose.

Willard's Day

++Yesterday Romney led the national polls from 1-4%. This was the first time in this election cycle that he had done that.


++If you want to read an excellent piece on the difference between national and state polls, yesterday's Nate Silver analysis in www.fivethirtyeight.com lays out the terrain.


++So while Romney is off offending the British, there are some state polls that bear watching:


Rasmussen on Nevada:Obama 50 and Romney 45.
Quinnipiac on New York: Obama 55 and Romney 32.
Monmouth University on New Jersey: Obama 51 and Romney 38.
PPP on Michigan: Obama 59 and Romney 33.
PPP on Pennsylvania: Obama 54 and Romney 37.


++Another poll on Latino voters emerged. NBC/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo. Obama 67% and Romney 23%. The Romney number is a killer.


++The Bain and tax ads are paying off. Mitt Romney has the worse favorables of any Republican candidate in history. He stands at 35% favorable and 40% unfavorable. Even John Kerry after absorbing the Swift Boat ads still ended up the 2004 campaign with a net positive.


++Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish had an observation which I thought really summed up the national polls. He said that until after August the numbers really were place-holders, people just biding time before they really have to make a decision.


++ Romney's secrecy has become pathological. It has been reported that the letters between father and son have disappeared from the George Romney Library. In his interview with Brian Williams, Romney again doubled down on not releasing his taxes because it would give Democrats ammunition. Isn't there an issue about transparency and tradition or is everything partisan? Today, even people working with Ann Romney's horse could not be interviewed by the press at the Olympics. 


++You choose--observers say that the stock market will determine whether Obama wins or not; another observer tracks droughts and how they affect elections and the Midwest drought might cause Obama's defeat. 


++To counter the ads about Romney's secrecy on Bain and taxes, the so-called  Conservative Majority SuperPac released an ad against President Obama invoking  his birth certificate, college transcripts and selective service application. The trouble is that the Romney people are finding out about negative ads against Obama is that the American electorate are pretty used to the President and already have a strong opinion about him so at best they ding him a point but the ads against Romney severely hurt his favorables.

Pew and PPP polls--Obama's Demise Continues

If you received a fund-raising e-mail from the Obama campaign, you'll know that they are scaring you with the prospects of a Romney win. I thought it was an adroit use of the two bad polls in the New York Times and the Washington Post. And even Bloomberg had Obama and Romney tied.

So let's see how far Obama has fallen. PEW released its latest poll today that showed Obama beating Romney 54 to 42 among registered voters. President Obama hit the 50% job approval rating for the first time since May 2011. President Obama is favorably thought of by voters by a 56%-41 margin.

Mitt Romney has a low 29% favorability rating against 51% unfavorable. In my day that meant the candidate was dead. There is an enthusiasm gap between Obama supporters and Romney voters. 41% of Obama supporters are strongly for the President, while only 28% of Romney supporters strongly support him. The gap grows wider against Santorum. Obama supporters are 45% strongly in favor of the President and Santorum has 28% strong support.

In terms of "engagement", Republicans have a slight edge . 71% have given their choice quite a lot of thought, while only 64% of Democrats have done the same. But this gap is far less than in 2010.

Talking Points Memo's poll tracker has Obama at 46.% versus Willard at 42.9%.

OK, these national polls change with the weather but what about at the state level. PPP released this morning their tenth poll of Pennsylvania since President Obama took office. President Obama has polled the best today than in all the past Pennsylvania polls. He leads Romney by 49 to 42. Where the rubber meets the road is among independents. Romney has a 32 favorable/51 unfavorable rating among them. And Obama, who has trailed among independents in the past, has a 51-38 lead.

A side effect of these polls is to damage Romney's claim at being the most electable Republican and actually being viable.