There's something strange about this afternoon's CBS/New York Times poll, which has the race tied. On the one hand, it shows Obama backsliding among men, women, Democrats, and Republicans--not only compared with last week's poll, but with the same poll released before the Democratic convention. On the other hand, today's poll shows Obama making significant progress among Clinton supporters over the same period: He now leads this group 69-16, versus 58-22 last week and 60-23 the week before.
Which is to say, Obama's worst showing among Clinton supporters came after what was by all accounts a unifying convention. His best showing comes after getting pummeled by the GOP for a couple of days.
I'm not sure what to attribute that to, or why he'd be climbing among Hillary supporters but dropping everywhere else. Is it possible that Hillary supporters are disproportionately down on Palin--and all the conservative red meat being dished out in St. Paul? At the very least, I'd guess they're more partisan than the average Democrat...
Update: A friend flags another weird detail I should have mentioned earlier: The poll has an equal number of men and women, even though women tend to make up a larger portion of the electorate.
Update II: Also, as a commenter points out, the poll has a pretty small sample size. In case it wasn't clear earlier, the results should be interpreted with a real grain of salt. That said, the Clinton supporter result is well outside the margin of error.
--Noam Scheiber