The first national polls after last-night's vice-presidential debate are coming in, and everyone is waiting to see if Joe Biden's aggressive performance against Paul Ryan will pay off for the Democratic ticket.
President Obama has been sliding in the polls since his poor performance in last week's presidential debate with Mitt Romney, and Biden was tasked with reenergizing the Democratic base halting Republican gains.
He put on a bombastic show, calling out Ryan's assertions, questioning his figures and ridiculing his positions.
Romney has been up between 1 and 5 points in national polls lately.
A Rasmussen poll released today showed Romney maintaining his slight lead, with 48 percent support to Obama's 47 percent. However, many of those respondents were polled before the vice-presidential debate.
Gallup's daily tracking poll puts Romney even higher than yesterday, with 49 percent of likely voters supporting him, compared to 47 percent for Obama, 1 percentage point more in Romney's favor.
Gallup recently changed its criteria for polling, switching to a "likely voter" model, and away from the "registered voter" model it has used for years.
Among registered voters, Obama actually leads Romney by 2 points, 48 percent to 46 percent.
Again, many of the respondents were polled before last night's debate.
If the vice-presidential debate has a strong influence on the national polls, it likely won't manifest for several days. While initial responses to Romney's first debate performance were very positive, it took five days for Romney to overtake Obama.
By that time next week, Obama and Romney will be meeting for their second debate, and all the media buzz, as well as voter enthusiasm, will be about their rematch.
Judging from initial reactions, though, Obama will follow Biden's lead and be much more combative and less professorial in his interactions with Romney.
For his part, Romney might pull back a bit, so as to appear more presidential, hoping the president's aggressiveness will look like desperate flailing.
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