The Gallup tracking polls on which I've been wasting good space here aren't worth the effort. IMHO successive reports appear to show important changes which are purely the result of Gallup's methodology

Consider Obama's rating in  the  polls issued on               

             10/21                                 10/23                 and       10/26

               45                                           47                                           46

How could  Obama’s ratings change  like this? It’s in the roundings. IMHO  if Gallup published this info carried out to the first decimal point these variations would be seen to be trivial .Consider the following illustration in which I have created  some imaginary daily data which calculates to the totals Gallup published.

                Oct 21                                 Oct 23                  and            Oct 26th.   

October 14^th        45.0 %                   16           45.0 %                      19         45.5               

                  15           45.0                       17           45.0                        20           46.0

                  16           45.0                       18           45.5                        21           50.0

                  17           45.0                        19           45.5                        22          49.2

                  18           45.5                        20           46.0                        23           45.0

                  19           45.5                        21           50.0                        24           44.0

                  20           46.0                        22           49.2                       25           44.0

Average                  45.3                                        46.6                                        46.2

Gallup would use     45                                           47                                           46   

Sorry to have used a sledge hammer to crack a nut but I've been unable to follow the wise advice of  Articleman and just ignore Gallup.Now I will. You should too. Altho you probably have sensibly made that decision already.