Arguably the most optimistic poll in the bunch of presidential polls for the Democrats today is the Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll which shows Barack Obama up by nine points over Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania.

It is worth noting that the last time that Muhlenberg College tested the presidential race, in April, they gave Obama a lead of just five points. The lead in today's poll release is more comparable to the one the president enjoyed in a late February Muhlenberg poll, at a time when his national numbers were a bit more robust than they have been as of late.

But amid all of the data points in today's Muhlenberg survey, this one might be the most instructive:



The poll of 422 likely voters was conducted Monday Aug. 20 through Wednesday Aug. 22 and has a margin of error of +/- 5 percent.

Aside from the one-day samples by the House of Ras, and the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, this is the only poll in today's set of polls that was conducted entirely after the Todd Akin story broke as the weekend drew to a close. A couple of days ago, when I noted on Tuesday that the GOP was in the midst of a run of pretty decent polling (especially downballot), I also speculated that the GOP taking it on the chin for a couple of news cycles courtesy of Akin's interview might halt that spurt of momentum. This is the first poll that might speak to that, since it is the first multi-day sample I've seen (outside of the Rasmussen tracker) that was conducted entirely after Akin's interview became part of the public conversation.

Of course, there is a tremendous potential for error in drawing conclusions from a single poll. But this may be something to watch as the week wears on, prior to the GOP gathering in Tampa next week. The single-day polls, for what it is worth, have been much more equivocal this week, with Democrats doing worse than one might expect in Missouri (PPP) and Connecticut (Rasmussen), but a bit better than one might expect in New Mexico (Rasmussen).

So, this is worth watching. It might amount to nothing, but given that the public quite clearly does not see the world the way Akin does (the polls on this, even in reddish Missouri, have been astoundingly clear, no matter the identity of the pollster), it is worth keeping an eye on it.

In other polling news...