There have been no major head-to-head polls out since yesterday, so the RealClear Politics average remains at Bush +3.4. Several new state polls have come out and they’re very much a mixed bag, although showing a bit of a Kerry gain.

Electoral-Vote.com has added in new poll results from AR, CO, FL, NH, NJ, OH, OK, PA, TN, and WA and revised his calculation to Kerry 284, Bush 247 (up from Kerry 253, Bush 247 yesterday). The reason? The latest Survey USA poll has Florida leaning Kerry by 1% after being “exactly tied” yesterday. I’m a bit skeptical of this result but we’ll soon see.

Slate’s Election Scorecard has it 299-239 for Kerry, giving him Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania–a trifecta among the Big 3 swing states. Let me go out on a limb here and say that ain’t gonna happen. Indeed, they don’t think so either:

Bush’s average national margin narrows; several polls now suggest a tie. Latest polls give Kerry 299 electoral votes, but a more complete Slate analysis later today will assign Florida to Bush, New Mexico to Kerry, and one Maine EV to Bush, leaving Kerry with 276.

Meanwhile, Bush’s slight lead in Colorado continues to grow:

Bush gains in poll – Numbers indicate more women moved into GOP column (Rocky Mountain News)

President Bush has pulled ahead of Sen. John Kerry in Colorado on the strength of increased popularity among women, according to a Rocky Mountain News/News 4 poll. Bush leads by 5 points, just outside the poll’s margin of error and up from a 1-point edge last month. His advantage includes a plurality of women, a change from previous polls that showed female voters preferred Kerry. Overall, the president has the support of 47 percent of respondents who said they were likely to vote Nov. 2. Kerry has 42 percent, and Ralph Nader has 3 percent. Five percent remain undecided, and another 3 percent refused to say whom they’ll vote for. “This is a war of inches,” said Lori Weigel of Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted the poll. Bush “has definitely inched ahead.” “I hate to say it,” she added, “but it just might be the soccer moms.”

***

Bush made several gains compared with a similar poll last month. He narrowed Kerry’s advantage among independent voters from 30 points to 7. And he padded his lead among Republicans by 4 points, while Kerry’s lead among Democrats stayed the same. Perhaps most important, the president turned a 7-point deficit among women into a 2-point advantage. Bush maintains a 9-point lead among men, the poll indicates.

This seems consistent with the national head-to-head polls.

Other interesting developments:

• Bush just barely leads in North Carolina and Virginia
• Ohio has swung back to Bush, although barely, in the latest polls
• Pennsylvania looks increasingly like a Kerry lock, moving out of the “swing” category
• Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arkansas continue to trend Bush

Again, it’s the state polls, not the national polls, that are important.

Update (1250): Via Wizbang, I’ve added a poll tracker to the top navbar, which I’ll leave up through the election. I already have a link to all the major polls and poll roundups, but it’s a handy visual device.

Update (1255): I moved it down just a bit, so that it has a white backing.

Update (1327): Larry Sabato has it Bush 284, Kerry 254 (via Stephen Green).

Now that the three presidential and one vice-presidential debates are through, it is clear that the debates in many ways served to elevate Kerry. In an ironic twist of fate, the rules that the president’s campaign thought would help George W. Bush strike a convincing blow against the Democrat only kept John Kerry on message and within the allotted time. With national polls showing the president anywhere from a point to many points ahead of the Democrat, it will come down to just a few states in the Electoral College. The Crystal Ball has moved Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia to solid Red states. That leaves–as we see it–11 states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin for a total of 121 electoral votes. Of course, some states are much, much closer than others.

Sabato gives the Florida and Ohio to Bush and Pennsylvania and New Mexico to Kerry, all narrowly. That’s my guess as well. I’m a bit dubious of a Bush runaway in North Carolina, however. The demographics of the state continue to change in ways that are eroding its traditional Southern heritage, owing to a surge of job seekers from the Rust Belt.