The big news today: the Pew Research poll showing Mitt Romney ahead 49-45 among likely voters. In Pew's last survey a month ago, Romney trailed by eight points.

Typically, the Pew commentary rabbits on about women, but the real story is Romney's white share, now 58% vs. Obama's 37%. A month ago, Romney's white share was only 51% vs. 44%, about the lowest seen in this election cycle. Congressional Republicans got about 60% of whites in 2010; Bush won with 58% of whites in 2004; other comparisons here (scroll down).

Rasmussen, which yesterday reported that Romney's post-debate bounce had evaporated, again shows a Romney-Obama 48-48 tie in its three-day tracking poll released today. Romney's white share, available to its premium Platinum subscribers, is up a point, at 56%.

Rasmussen comments grumpily:

We have reached the point in the campaign where media reports of some polls suggest wild, short-term swings in voter preferences. That doesn’t happen in the real world. A more realistic assessment shows that the race has remained stable and very close for months. Since last week’s debate, the numbers have shifted somewhat in Romney’s direction, but even that change has been fairly modest. Still, in a close race, a modest change can have a major impact.

The Washington Times/ Zogby poll released last night shows Romney trailing Obama 45-45.5 if Third Parties are counted. (Libertarian Gary Johnson shows at 1.7%, illustrating the foolishness of the GOP's treatment of Ron Paul at the convention). Rasmussen describes this as a dead heat.

Again typically, in 33 pages of detailed data, Zogby does not mention the white share.

Romney is still stuck in the pathetic white share range for post-Reagan GOP presidential candidates, albeit at the upper end by Pew's count. The question is whether, with immigration-induced demographic shift, this will be enough.