The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 46% of the vote while McCain earns 45%. When "leaners" are included, it’s Obama 49%, McCain 46% (see recent daily results). Tracking Poll results are released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time each day and a FREE daily e-mail update is available.

Each Saturday morning, Rasmussen Reports reviews the key polls of the past week to learn What They Told Us.

Tracking Poll results are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, roughly two-thirds of the interviews were completed before McCain’s speech on Wednesday night. One third were completed before Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s speech on Wednesday. Tomorrow (Sunday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after Palin’s speech and Monday will be the first based entirely upon interviews conducted after McCain’s speech. By Tuesday or Wednesday, the overall impact of both political conventions should be fairly clear.

As McCain has begun to chip away as Obama’s convention bounce, most of his gains have come among women voters. Obama still leads 51% to 44% among women, but that seven-point edge is just half the fourteen point lead he enjoyed last Tuesday. McCain leads by three among men, little changed in recent days.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Obama voters now say they are voting with enthusiasm for their candidate while 17% are primarily voting against the other candidate. For McCain, those numbers are 65% and 28% respectively. Before the Republican convention, just 54% of McCain voters were voting enthusiastically for him rather than simply voting against Obama.

McCain is now viewed favorably by 58% of the nation’s voters while Obama earns positive reviews from 57% (see trends). McCain earns favorable reviews from 91% of Republicans while Obama is viewed favorably by 87% of Democrats. Among unaffiliated voters, McCain’s favorable ratings are at 64%, Obama’s at 54%. Premium Members can review demographic crosstabs and all the data we collect--not just the portion we make public. Premium Members can also get an advance look at tracking poll results via the Daily Snapshot each morning.

Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of voters including 40% with a Very Favorable opinion of her.

The Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator currently shows Obama leading in states with 193 Electoral College votes while McCain leads in states with 183 votes (see Quick Campaign Overview). When leaners are included, it’s Obama 264, McCain 247 (see 50-State Summary).

Data from Rasmussen Markets currently gives Obama a % chance of winning in November. Other key stats of Election 2008 can still be seen at Obama-McCain: By the Numbers. Sign up for a free daily e-mail update.

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 1,000 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 3,000 Likely Voters--is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for the full-week results are available for Premium Members.

Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large. Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. Our baseline targets are established based upon survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews). For September, the targets are 39.7% Democrat, 32.1% Republican, and 28.2% unaffiliated (see party trends and analysis). For the month of August, the targets were 40.6% Democrat, 31.6% Republican, and 27.8% unaffiliated.

A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.