The daily tracking polls have been relatively stable over the last three days, since the previous polling update here; hence also the absence of intermittent updates. But today’s polls are interesting because they do not, or hardly, include any impact the Veep debate might have. So they can be used as a yardstick for measuring any such impact in three days’ time, when most of the tracking polls will have a sample completely from after the debate.

(There’s some trickiness involved, of course, in that the Veep debate will hardly be the only development impacting opinions; what about the Senate vote for the bailout bill, for example? Or, as Gallup points out, “the new Labor Department report out today, showing a bigger job loss in September than many analysts had predicted”?)

Daily tracking polls, 10/3 (click to enlarge)

Here’s the graph. Gallup’s poll bounced around a little the last few days, with Obama’s lead shrinking from 8% to 4% between Monday and Wednesday, and increasing to 7% again by today. The Rasmussen and Hotline poll have remained almost entirely stable and similar, showing an Obama lead of 5-7%. And the Daily Kos tracking poll, conducted by Research 2000, is off on its lonesome showing a significantly larger Obama lead of 10-11%.

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Reviewing the average of the four polls, however, there’s a hint of new movement today.

Today’s daily tracking polls offer a mixed picture, roughly showing a stabilisation of Obama’s lead.

Daily tracking polls, 9/30 - click to enlarge

Gallup has Obama’s lead down 2 points, from +8 to +6, but the other three trackers all have his lead increasing by a percentage point. Rasmussen and Hotline both have it growing from +5 to +6, while Research 2000, the Daily Kos-sponsored poll, has him going up from +9 to +10.

Both Rasmussen and Hotline have basically has Obama’s lead stable at 5-6 points for four days in a row now. Basically, it seems Obama’s lead grew as the financial crisis first became clear, then stabilised, made another jump when McCain “suspended” his campaign, and now has stabilised again.

Obama’s well; impact of debate hard to distinguish from impact of McCain’s political stunts last week

McCain announced the suspension of his campaign on Wednesday the 24th. The first day of polling after this announcement was included in the daily tracking poll releases of the 26th, and that day Obama’s average lead in the tracking polls jumped from 3.3% to 5%. As the three- and four-day rolling polls started including more days from after McCain’s announcement, Obama’s average lead increased further, to 5.5% on Saturday, 6.5% on Sunday and 6.8% on Monday. The public was obviously not impressed by McCain’s political theatre.

By then of course the debate had taken place too, though. The first day of polling after the debate was included in the releases of Sunday the 28th, when Obama’s average lead jumped up a full point to 6.5%. But that jump can’t be read to directly indicate the impact of the debate. That’s also the day, for most of the tracking polls, when the last pre-suspension day of polling rolled out from the sample. In short, just like the previous two days which also saw notable gains for Obama, it was a day on which a day’s worth of polling from before McCain’s suspension of the campaign was replaced by a day’s worth of post-suspension polling.

It’s the two days since that which seem a more logical focus for measuring the impact of the debate. And on these two days, Obama’s lead basically stabilised, with his average lead rising from 6.5% to 6.8% and 7.0%. Just going on these tracking polls, the debate was indeed something of a draw, then. Which arguably counts as a tactical victory for Obama, since he’s the one ahead, and a draw is a perfectly adequate result if you’re 7 points out ahead.