Can't find an average putting Romney at less than +6% over Gingrich, some have him at +12% so it looks like this one is down to how big/little the lead.  Big lead, Romney might have leverage to at least get the headlines about him more than his oppenents with nothing to lose, at least ask nicely for them to step aside.  Smaller lead, we still have a game here at least as far as headline chasers are concerned.  Either way Gingrich and Santorum have little reason not to drag this out, but their credibility in doing so may evaporate tonight.  What's amazing is how much it's costing "Mr. Most Electable" (?) and SuperPAC friends, how much energy the campaign is having to expend just to stay ahead of Newt Gingrich.  Newt.  Gingrich.  Romney's not connecting. 

While you're waiting for polls to close:

Gallup sizes up 6 months polling and finds swing state registered voters evenly split in an Obama/Romney matchup.

Also: Ron Paul.

FiveThirtyEight: Romney still vulnerable.

Historic partisan love/hate for Obama.

Romney the chameleon may be what's holding back the Newt.  He's the closest candidate GOP voters have to "generic Republican" in a suit and tie.

Finally, not a poll, just cool: Physicists publish The Theory of F#@!ing Everything.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Federal law enforcement agencies have launched a criminal investigation into the use of American Express cards issued by the Republican Party of Florida to elected officials and staff, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.

[...]

Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders — former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson — to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.

Political parties, which are tax exempt, are allowed to spend money only on political activities, such as fundraising, running campaigns and registering voters. While it's commonplace for party officials and politicians to wine and dine donors, the Florida party allowed credit card holders to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges with little oversight.

The IRS opened the so-called "primary'' investigation into Rubio, the leading Republican candidate for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat, and the two former state GOP officials to see if there's enough evidence to support a full-fledged criminal inquiry, according to a source familiar with the IRS examination.

Although the Senate campaign of the state's Republican Governor Charlie Crist has pulled its ads ahead of an expected announcement of a switch from the GOP to Independent status -- a switch I have been writing about for five and a half months -- you have to imagine that this story won't be absent from Crist's ads, or for that matter those put up by Democrat Kendrick Meek, in a general election campaign. Which is all to say, anyone who thinks this election is in the bag for Marco Rubio is off their rocker.

I think Charlie Crist knows which way this election is ging

There's more...

Here are the Rasmussen swing state polls:

CO--O 49, M46
FL--tied at 48
OH--M 51, O 44
PA--O 47, M 45
VA--M 49, O 47

All taken after the GOP convention.

What's remarkable is that Florida is tied.  Maybe there's a Palin backlash there.  

Ohio is slipping away, though Rasmussen has been bearish on Obama's Ohio propects.  The other thing to note is independents;
in OH and VA he's down double digits, in the other states, he's up double digits.

Obama may not win Florida (and the election), but I'd say his percentage there will higher than in Ohio.  We'll have to see what tomorrow's trackers will bring.

There's more...

Senator Obama's campaign illustrated the unconventional and possibly innovative thinking of the campaign. They laid out a path to the presidency that would include Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states, but not necessarily the pair of battleground states that decided the last two elections -- Florida and Ohio. In a session with HRC's supporters David Plouffe outlined "several alternatives to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of recent elections."

At a fundraiser held at a Washington brewery Friday, Plouffe told a largely young crowd that the electoral map would be fundamentally different from the one in 2004. Wins in Ohio and Florida would guarantee Obama the presidency if he holds onto the states won by Democrat John Kerry, Plouffe said, but those two battlegrounds aren't required for victory.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/200 8/06/16/obama-camp-we-can-win-without-oh io-florida/

I think Obama campaign realizes that their action during primary process had significantly compromised their ability to compete in FL in the general election (which many of us had warned before). I'm not sure why Ohio is in the same category now that Obama has the able support of Gov. Ted Strickland and his state campaign machine. But does stating this aloud mean they are falling back to 48 state campaign strategy (or maybe less) from the earlier goal of competing in all 50 states?Anyway the campaign is definitely doing some innovative thinking to reach their goal of winning the WH in November.
 

There's more...