Huge audience expected on night that could swing polls.
Are you getting the feeling, as I am, that we are being jerked around by wildly swinging poll numbers?
By this weekend, Mr. Romney's aides were on the offensive and increasingly confident, with some combination of their strategy and Mr. Gingrich's own performance swinging polls in Mr. Romney's direction.
As a result, they will be pondering the strange movements of the orange tide and seek its meaning in nebulous terms of shifting tribal allegiance, tactical manoeuvres, regional swings, polling errors, honeymoons and holiday romances.
The other swing state poll showing Mr. Romney ahead was in North Carolina, where a Rasmussen Reports poll gave him a six-point lead.
If Mr. Obama gains a net of 2 percentage points after the debate, then he should move ahead in the majority of national polls, and his swing state polls should show a clear advantage for him.
Friday featured a large volume of swing state polling, including three polls of Ohio, each of which showed Mr. Obama ahead by margins ranging from two to four percentage points.
In another swing state poll, by the firm EPIC/MRA in Michigan, Mr. Obama held a 6-point lead.
Yet women in the state favor Clinton by 20 percentage points, according to a new Quinnipiac University swing state poll.
At 10, Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, will discuss results of the Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times swing state poll at the National Press Club.
