POLLS

Posted at 2:23 p.m. ET

All trackers for the day are out, and they tell a fascinating story.  Rasmussen, as already reported here, has the race tied, as does Battleground.  Hotline has Obama up by one. 

But Gallup has Obama up by five.  Thus, Gallup suddenly becomes the outlier.

We stress once more that these are snapshots, and that there's a margin of error.  Given that margin of error, all these polls could actually be close.  But the Gallup result stands out. 

New Marist state polls out today are not encouraging for Senator McCain, but they tend to differ from more optimistic polls published by others in recent days.  Marist has Obama up five in Pennsylvania, two in Ohio and nine in Michigan.  I'd be careful about these results.

The candidates and parties do their own polling, but those results are never released.

There should be more state polls later today.

September 19, 2008.