Obama up 1 nationally

PPP's national tracking finds Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 49-48 based on interviews conducted between Tuesday and Thursday night. Obama and Romney's numbers have flipped since PPP's last release, which was based on interviews conducted between Friday and Sunday of last week.

There are indications within the poll of at least a nominal bounce for Obama based on his leadership during the hurricane this week. His approval rating is up a net 3 points from what it was a week ago, from 46/51 to 48/50. Obama's also reduced Romney's lead with independents from 8 points at 50-42 last weekend to now just 3 points at 48-45. Given the national Democratic identification advantage if Obama can keep things that competitive with independents he's likely to win the popular vote.

Romney is winning the white vote 59/38, but Obama is making up for that with a 91/5 lead with African Americans and a 69/29 one with Hispanics. Young voters are going to be critical for Obama. His 58/38 advantage with them allows him to lead overall despite trailing by small margins within every other age group. He needs a strong turnout from young people to push him over the top. We find a smaller gender gap than usual with Obama up 50/47 among women and Romney up 50/47 with men.

We've been running this poll for almost three weeks now and neither candidate has ever led by more than 2 points in our three day rolling average. It's going right down to the wire.

Full results here

Comments

[Sean]

You must have a really loose likely voter screen. 42% Democratic? Get out of here PPP. You are in for a rude awakening come November 6th.

[Josh Bolen]

Hey Tom, when will we see the data dump? Will you be releasing all of the polls on Monday, or half Sunday and half Monday, etc?

[Kara]

I was polled by PPP for this data the other night, and they did not ask me questions 2, 3, or 4 after I answered I was voting for Mitt Romney. Why is that, I'd like to know????