By I-Hsien Sherwood | i.sherwood@latinospost.com (staff@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Nov 05, 2012 03:41 PM EST

While President Obama still clings to a narrow lead in many critical swing states, the national polls predict a very close outcome for the popular vote.

Today sees the return of the Gallup daily tracking poll after its hiatus due to fallout from Hurricane Sandy last week.

Republican challenger Mitt Romney still leads in that poll, though only by a single point, dropping significantly from the 5 or 7-point margins we saw early last week.

That may be due to the unique composition of today's Gallup poll. Usually, Gallup polls voters from around the country every day, and then aggregates data from the previous seven days to produce a rolling average.

However, since Gallup doesn't have full data from the past week, this update covers only the last three days.

Obama's support has been on the rise in the last week after his quick and decisive response to the hurricane and its aftermath, and this update ignores Romney's stronger support from earlier days.

In addition to the Gallup poll, we have a few other national polls to look at.

The Rasmussen tracking poll, which also aggregates data over three days, shows Romney ahead by the same margin, 1 point, 49 percent to 48 percent.

A Monmouth/SurveyUSA poll shows the candidates tied, at 48 percent even.

A CNN/ORC poll also shows a tie, as does a Politico/George Washington University poll.

But three polls show Obama leading in the popular vote.

A Pew Research poll, the last before the election, gives Obama a 3-point lead over Romney, 50 percent to 47 percent.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has Obama up by a point, 48 percent to 47 percent.

And an ABC News/Washington Post poll concurs, giving Obama 1-point lead over Romney, 49 percent to 48 percent.

What does this mean for the election tomorrow?

The Electoral College aside, polls for the popular vote have been close for weeks, with some firms bouncing back and forth between the two candidates, while others show consistent but small leads for one candidate or the other.

Taken together, and accounting for margins of error and statistical error, it's basically a draw.

RealClearPolitics' average of all the national polls gives Obama the slimmest of margins, 0.4 percent.

Of course, the popular vote doesn't decide the election. It's quite possible that Obama takes the Electoral College but loses the popular vote by a small fraction, leading to a repeat of the "mandate" disputes after the 2000 election.




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