Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: The president is surprisingly strong. Or staggeringly weak.

Another quiet day on the data front today, with only a smattering of new polls. Moreover, any efforts to draw hard conclusions from today's set will be an exercise in frustration. Gallup stays consistent, while the House of Ras is behaving ... well ... much like you'd expect them to behave. One state poll looks pretty lousy for the president, while another one, quite frankly, looks too good.

On to the numbers:

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (46-45)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (48-44)

NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Romney (44-42)

MICHIGAN (Foster McCollum White/Boudoun): Obama d. Romney (47-45)

NEW JERSEY (Rutgers/Eagleton): Obama d. Romney (56-33)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

WI-SEN (Rasmussen): Tommy Thompson (R) 52, Tammy Baldwin (D) 36; Mark Neumann (R) 45, Baldwin 43; Eric Hovde (R) 44, Baldwin 42; Baldwin 44, Jeff Fitzgerald (R) 43

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...

• Today's data affords me one of the first opportunities of the election cycle to put a little skin in the game, as they say. So I offer this wager to any of my friends on the right (or the center, I suppose) who wish to take me up on it: You take Tommy Thompson. I'll take Tammy Baldwin and the 16 percentage points. Deal? Some days, it is like ole Scotty Rasmussen isn't even trying. Most curious in that poll, however: very little change in the numbers for any other Republican candidates (though they all still do fairly well). He shows a big surge for Tommy Thompson, but no real movement for any of the other GOP hopefuls. An intriguing dichotomy, to say the least. But the wager still stands, friends on the right!
• Meanwhile, if any of my pals want to counter-wager with the New Jersey poll from Rutgers-Eagleton, I have to say it: no bet. President Obama's uber-fans here on the site may crack me in the comments for this, but I simply do not see, given where it is generally assumed that race is nationally, Barack Obama rolling out to a 23-point lead in New Jersey. Now, do I think that Obama will carry the Garden State? Absolutely. Do I think that Obama will carry the Garden State by double digits? Quite possibly (my current projection/guesstimate is right at 10-12 points). Do I think he's up 23? Nope. What I said about the House of Ras in Wisconsin applies here: If you have one result, and everyone else has something else, it is unlikely that everyone else is wrong. And 23 points is quite a bit loftier than we've seen from other outlets.
• That Michigan poll annoys me a little bit, and not just because every outlet is calling it a 47-46 poll, even though the pollster helpfully goes to the second decimal point and says it is 46.89 to 45.48. Is there some kind of rule to rounding up when it is almost, but not quite, at 45.5 that I missed in the fourth grade, for crying out loud?

  The other thing that annoys me (ditto for New Jersey): no Senate polling. I'd love to have seen if Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow is as safe as PPP and EPIC-MRA implied last week, just like I'd love to see if Democrat Robert Menendez is in any peril in New Jersey, as some pollsters have hinted. Alas, perhaps next time.

Originally posted to Daily Kos Elections on Thu Jun 14, 2012 at 05:00 PM PDT.

Also republished by Daily Kos.

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