Monday polls: Obama weakens in some polls, Coleman up in MN

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifA day after a wave of general election polls highlighted McCain's improving position, the new USA Today/Gallup poll suggests that the Democrats are retaining a slight lead:

• Clinton beats McCain 51% to 46%, while Obama is on top 49% to 47%.
• This is an improvement for Democrats, as they both trailed McCain in Gallup's previous poll released at the end of February.
  

Noticeable in this poll is also that Clinton is running slightly ahead of Obama, which confirms that the two candidates electability showing is starting to be balanced and inconsistent again as it used to be after a few weeks in which Obama was running way ahead. And this could coincidence to a general weakening of Obama's position over the past few days, perhaps as a result of the negative attention he attracted with the controversy over Wright:

• Gallup's tracking poll shows Clinton taking a statistically insignificant, 47% to 45%. What is not insignificant is that this is the first time in 9 days (since the days following Hillary's March 4th come back) that Obama is ahead.
  

• Rasmussen has also showed a tightening Democratic primary over the past few days (basically since Wright), with Obama now up 46% to 44%. Worth noting that Clinton is up 48% to 42% among registered Democrats, so Obama is getting his lead from independents and Republicans willing to vote in the Dem primary.

• In the general election, Rasmussen shows McCain pulling ahead and leading both Democrats 48% to 42% -- a lead that is starting to look significant. Confirming that Obama's issues are due to last week's stories is the drop in his favorability rating and the rise of his unfavorable rating.

Naturally, the Clinton-Obama national match-ups are more useless now than ever since there only are a handful of states that still have to vote. But they are an important indication of the mood of the country and of the impact stories are having. And the Obama campaign will take comfort in a CNN poll released today but taken from Friday to Sunday (so also after the Wright controversy) that shows Obama is leading Clinton 52% to 46%. This is the first time Obama is above 50% in a CNN national poll.

Finally, SUSA released a Senate poll today from Minnesota and brought some good news for the GOP:

• The incumbent Norm Coleman is way ahead of the Democrat Al Franken, 51% to 41%.
• This is a dramatic shift from SUSA's February poll that showed a toss-up between the two candidates. What is strange is that the male vote practically did not change between the two but that the female vote dramatically shifted from Franken to Coleman.

This is the first poll taken since Franken became the likely Democratic nominee with the withdrawal of his strongest opponent. And it is particularly frustrating for Democrats since it follows a string of polls that showed Franken edging out Coleman, confirming that this seat will be one of the most hotly contested (and entertaining) of the cycle. We will have to get confirmation that this poll is not an outlier, of course, and the numbers remain close enough (especially this far out of Election Day) for us to rate this as one of the Democrats' very best pick-up opportunities.