John McCain Watch: Up By Two in Gallup

John McCain is maintaining his lead over Barack Obama in today’s Gallup Presidential Daily Tracking Poll.

While today’s two percentage point advantage for McCain is not statistically significant, McCain’s persistent two-point advantage across the three most recent Gallup Poll Daily tracking reports suggests he does hold a real, albeit slight, lead over Obama. It also suggests the race may be stabilizing at this highly competitive level after the tapering off of some, but not all, of McCain’s post-convention bounce.

McCain had trailed Obama by eight points around the close of the Democratic National Convention, but then moved into a five-point lead right after the Republican National Convention. The structure of the race is now slightly more favorable for McCain than it was prior to the entire convention period, when Obama typically led McCain by one or two points. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

Again, it will be the battleground states rather than the national polling that drives this race. But, the trend for McCain is unmistakable and has Team Obama scrambling to go negative.