As we noted when it came out, the recent Siena poll showing a close race in New York precipitated some anxiety among core Obama volunteers, leading apparently to a come-to-Jesus meeting between activists and state director Dave Pollak.

I sent this email to one of the participants on September 15th.

Here's my take: we've seen, since their convention, a weakening in Obama's poll numbers and strengthening in McCain's. That trend peaked and reversed itself about three days ago. Now, we're seeing Obama gaining, interestingly enough, even in some of the state polls that were in the field until yesterday.

I prefer not to do forecasting, but my guess would be that Obama's going to regain the lead in the national tracking polls uniformly in the next week, and that New York right now is roughly Obama 53%, McCain 42%. The Siena poll is perfectly fine methodologically, but apparently, they didn't push leaners, which in terms of the gap benefited McPOW more than it did our guy, since McScumbag was enjoying a bounce, and people moved from Obama to undecided. Note how Siena counts 13% undecided/other, which is very high. The vast majority of those undecideds should be considered Obama leaners.

A new Rasmussen poll today confirms that New York currently goes to Obama, 55% to 42%.