Its likely just one day of bad polling.  Rasmussen, Gallup and Zogby have not moved in that fashion at all.  

Hotline polls far fewer people than Rasmussen and Gallup and has less stringent guidelines, I'm sure. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a leader instead of an outlier. The race was bound to tighten a bit. After Obama holds his own in the town hall debate and shows McCain up, look for the nujmbers to get higher.

Outlier. MSNBC this morning spent considerable time on a poll (WSJ?) showing that Obama basically leads by comfortable margins across the board on economic issues--who's better for the economy, the housing crisis, etc.

I don't have much faith in polls showing Obama leading by 10 or 12 points nationally, and by large margins in places like North Carolina and Virginia, but I don't think it's a 2-point race, either.

Needless to say, I'm sure every wretched pundit show will convene a roundtable of journalists and analysts to discuss this poll, why Obama is now "fading" and how McCain has "seized momentum." You know, just like with the celebrity ad, which I think about 12 people ever actually saw.

Zogby poll suggests the race is within the margin of error. Two things:

1) I do not trust any Zogby polls and off late he has been hedging his bets more than anything else

2) This is my personal opinion but I thought that even though Biden "won" the debate, it did result in the resurrection of the Republican ticket. I for one advocated a far tougher approach. I rather have them whine about sexism than see then rejuvenated. I thought the Obama campaign especially Biden did a disservice in handling Palin with kiddie-gloves...she is running for the VP for chrissakes!

They changed their party ID weighting to +2 Dem.

If they are going with a +2 Dem party id going forward, I imagine that Hotline's tracker will be close through Nov. 4.

Hotline doesn't push undecideds... not the way Rasmussen and Gallup do.

BOFUS?

The hotline poll had some numbers that went against the trend earlier. In the days after Sep. 15th, when the economy started playing a major role, they had McCain going up on the economy, while Obama was going down.

That didn't match other trackers at all.

One individual tracking polls numbers don't mean much. Also remember that, after the first debate, Gallup dropped back to 46-46, which turned out to be a blip.

If the overall trend for all of them is downwards, then you have something. Otherwise, it doesnt mean much.

couple of days have shown some tightening of the race.  It's hard to know what to do with this data, especially with so many polls suggesting Obama enjoys a wide lead.  It is possible that the Ayers attacks have caused some doubt among various supporters of Barack Obama.  I think three things are interesting:

1.  Obama has declined in some polls the past few days; but

2.  John McCain has not risen; and

3.  Obama continues to lead in all polls.

McCain and Palin are trying to introduce doubt about Obama, and we may be seeing some hesitation in a segment of voters.  I think Obama will reassure people this evening with his performance, and things should be okay again soon across the board.

It must be because Gallup has the race at 9 points.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/la bel/pollster%20ratings

As the above link demonstrates, Zogby and CBS (but Zogby in particular) are like throwing darts at a board, not very good record of getting things right.  

While I don't like their politics, Rasmussen is one of the most reliable pollsters out there.  

Sadly Gallup is not all that accurate in predicting absolute margins but are useful for demonstrating a trend line.

I don't know why they changed party ID from +6 to +2, but that accounts for the whole change.