Gallup sees race tighten after last debate

But nothing like the Drudge Report highlight.

Here’s today’s Gallup release:

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking report from Monday through Wednesday shows Barack Obama with a 49%to 43% lead over John McCain among registered voters.

Almost all of the interviews in this three-day rolling average were conducted before Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate at Hofstra University, which began at 9 p.m. ET. It will be several days before the full impact of this debate can be measured in the three-day rolling average, although its initial impact might be apparent as early as Friday’s report.

So where did Drudge get those numbers (Obama 49, McCain 47)? A real, but older and somewhat set aside, set of criteria. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight unpacks things a bit here.

From the link:

Slow news day, Matt? If this is a two-point race right now, I’ll eat Drudge’s fedora. None of the dozen or so other polls that were in the field this week shows a race that close. Nor do either of the alternate versions of Gallup’s model, including the so-called Likely Voters II model that I find most credible. (Drudge, of course, had no interest in featuring the Zogby poll, as he had for the past several of days on his site, but which today showed Obama gaining ground.)

Let me be clear: I don’t blame Drudge for trying to drive the narrative. Unlike certain other folks, it’s not as though he’s made any claim to being objective. With real news — which polls aren’t — he generally has excellent and entertaining instincts.