Poll dancing -- 08.29.12

Believe it or not... [Wentzel Strategies, 8/29]: "Republican Todd Akin leads incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in the race for U.S. Senate by a 45% to 42% margin, with 13% undecided."

Among registered voters Paul Ryan not too hot, not too cold [Washington Post/ABC News, 8/28]: Thirty-eight percent of registered voters say Ryan's views are "just about right" compared to 31 percent who say they're "too liberal" and 7 percent who say they're too conservative.

What's the word on Ryan... [Pew, 8/29]: "[A]mong 1,010 adults, people offer a roughly equal number of positive and negative descriptions. Of those offering a word, 37% describe Ryan in clearly positive terms, using such words as intelligent, good, energetic , honest and smart. Another 35% of the words used are clearly negative in tone, such as idiot, extreme, phony and scary. The remaining 28% of the descriptions were not clearly positive or negative, such as conservative, unknown and young. (Cool graphic on this here).

Waste of time? [Rasmussen, 8/29]: "[A] plurality (44%) of Likely U.S. Voters considers the conventions a waste of time and money... 35% disagree, with 22% more who are undecided."

President Obama slipping in Iowa [PPP, 8/28]: Obama is currently polling at 47 percent to Mitt Romney's 45 percent. Last month, Obama was ahead of Romney by five points. In May, Obama was 10 points ahead.

The horse race [RCP average, 8/28]: Obama 46.8 percent, Romney 45.7 percent.