Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation poll: Obama erases Romney lead

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 10/18-21. Likely voters. MoE ±2.7% (10/12-14 results)

The candidates for President are Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. If the election was today, who would you vote for?

Obama 48 (46)
Romney 48 (50)

President Barack Obama lost five net points among Democrats, gained seven net points among Republicans, and gained three net points among independents in this poll taken entirely before last night's debate. Add it all up, and you get a tied game'in line with national polling that has slowly been moving back Obama's direction. Well, except for the now-laughable Gallup outlier.

Remember, the crosstabs have smaller sample sizes, thus larger potential error, but Obama went from 62-36 among Latinos to 62-29, while he also gained among whites, from losing them 60-37 to 58-38. And while those Latino numbers look bad for Romney, they are still likely too optimistic for Republicans. Latino Decisions, which polls Latinos specifically in both English and Spanish, has Obama leading with that demographic 71-20. 80-20 is not out of the realm of possibility.

There is also a huge gender gap'women support Obama 52-43, while men support Romney 54-42 for a 21-point gap. The numbers among women haven't changed from last week, but Obama improved from 57-40 among men.

It's old news now, but respondents who watched the second presidential debate said Obama won it by a double-digit 49-38 margin. Even 26 percent of conservatives were honest enough to admit Obama won, along with 56 percent of moderates and 92 percent of liberals. We're asking the same question next week, so expect even bigger margins after last night's ass-whooping.

In case anyone is wondering, this is an entirely different sample than PPP's daily tracker, which was also 48-48 on Monday.