Weekend Polling: Advantage Team Blue

The Polltracker chart does not include the Dispatch poll out this morning as of this writing.

A trio of interesting newspaper polls just out in the last twelve hours show an advantage for the Blue Team.

Ohio

In Ohio, Columbus Dispatch: Obama 52 51 Romney 41 42 (+9). The two were tied at 45 in August.

What's interesting here is not simply the confirmation of an Obama lead. The internals show Obama splitting the senior vote and winning everyone else. This, with Ohioans casting ballots starting Tuesday.  And not to put too fine a point on it, this from National Review:

In terms of the broader election, I don't want to be the one who contradicts Karl Rove's view that Romney can win without Ohio, but he can't. It isn't just that historically no Republican has won the presidency without Ohio's electoral votes that 'proves' that point. It also is the fact that Ohio is a bell-weather state, so if a candidate cannot win Ohio ' especially a candidate operating under a very-low-margin-of-error strategy ' the likelihood that that candidate wins enough of the other five to nine toss-up states is not high. We are seeing that in the polling results in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Virginia. The election isn't over, but it appears that Romney will need a big Obama misstep to win.

Iowa

The Des Moines Register's go-to pollster in IA, Ann Selzer, has Obama up 49-45 (+4). There hasn't been a DMR poll since February (Romney was up by 2).

Romney leads by a huge margin on who would be better for business,

But so far they're not convinced Romney will do a better job of shoring up the economy. He trails slightly (47 percent to 46 percent) in voters' perception of who would be the better economy fixer.

Also note:

Thirty-seven days from Election Day, Iowa has few undecided voters left ' just 2 percent.

But 10 percent of likely voters say they could still change their minds. Of that group, more than half are independent voters.

'The 10 percent persuadable could change the race,' Democratic strategist Celinda Lake said.

The Polltracker chart includes the DMR poll out last night.

Massachusetts Senate

The Boston Globe has Elizabeth Warren (D) over Scott Brown (R-inc) by 5, 43-38 with 18% undecided. That reverses a May 2 point Brown lead. From the Globe:

This survey is the sixth of eight public polls taken this month that show Warren ahead.

Warren's lead is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, meaning a spread of as much as 8 percentage points between the candidates would still statistically count as a dead heat. Still, the survey is sobering for Brown six weeks before the election.

'It's trending away from Brown,'' said Smith. 'Brown right now is not doing well enough among Democrats to offset the advantage that ­Warren has,' said Smith. 'That's just such a big obstacle to overcome for any Republican candidate' in Massachusetts.

The Polltracker chart does not include the Boston Globe poll out this morning as of this writing.

Finally, keep in mind the under-appreciated RAND poll shows a stable race today.

Since the narrative from the media will be straining for a Romney comeback to make this a race, keep in mind where we are the Sunday before the debates.