Just as the daily tracking polls in New Hampshire leading up to Tuesday's primary provided some clues to the fading of Obama's post-Iowa bounce and a resurgent Clinton on Monday, a similar dynamic appears to be at play in Michigan among the Republicans. In the wake of McCain's New Hampshire win, Mitchell Interactive released a poll that found McCain with a 6 point lead over Romney. Since then, Mitchell has released 2 daily tracking polls, both of which confirm that Romney has the momentum leading into tomorrow's primary.

As you can see from the first two polls, adding January 12th to the polling time range netted Romney 5 points. By the time Jan. 9th (the day after McCain's win) was dropped from the rolling average and repaced by the 13th, Romney was up by 2%, an 8 point swing in a matter of 5 days. While this change could be attributed to the difference between weekday and weekend polling (the 12th is a Saturday,) Steve Mitchell of Mitchell Interactive believes the movement is real, as he explains:

"As the undecided voters make up their minds, more are turning to Mitt Romney than to John McCain. We have also seen the participation among Republicans increase from 62% last night to 75% at the end of phoning tonight. That means that 75% of the voters taking part in the GOP Primary identify themselves as Republicans."

This final point is key. As Race42008 points out, there's a fairly consistent correlation between the % of Republicans pollsters find intend to take part in tomorrow's primary and how Romney and McCain perform.

Zogby: McCain +3 (50% Republican voters)
Rasmussen: Romney +1 (70% Republican voters)
Mitchell: Romney +2 (75% Republican voters)
Detroit Freep: Romney +5 (83% Republican voters)
MSNBC/Mason-Dixon: Romney +8 (70% Republican voters)

McCain's 2000 win was propelled in part by Democrats and Independents crossing over and voting in large numbers in the Republican primary (Republicans made up just 48% of the vote that year.) This was a result of a concerted effort to deliver McCain a win to embarrass then-Governor Engler who was supporting Bush as well as the fact that the Democratic primary was uncontested. Neither is technically the case this year. Race42008 predicts the % of Republicans that participate in tomorrow's GOP primary is likely to be higher than 63%, which was the percentage that turned out in 1996 when there was an uncontested Democratic primary but no cross-over effort. If there's any mobilization effort among Democrats this year, it's to turn out in the Dem primary for 'Uncommitted' against Hillary Clinton.

Another factor in the decreased turnout for John McCain on the part of Independents and Democrats this year has got to be his embrace of Bush's war policy and his overall attempt to run more as a conservative than as the maverick he became known as in 2000. Remember, as well as McCain did among Independents in New Hampshire, he beat Romney among registered Republicans by a small margin, a group that he lost to Bush in 2000. But even when McCain has tried to rekindle his straight talk reputation on the stump in Michigan these past few days, it's been fairly disastrous.

Paul Krugman recalls a recent moment of brutal honesty:

Take, for example, John McCain's admission that economics isn't his thing. "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," he says. "I've got Greenspan's book."

And then there was this unfortunate recent episode, from The Boston Globe:

Romney talked about reviving the auto industry, but McCain said some Michigan industries cannot be resurrected.

"I've got to give you some straight talk: Some of the jobs that have left the state of Michigan are not coming back," he said. "They are not. And I am sorry to tell you that."

McCain seems to have realized that in 2008 Michigan, "straight talk" on the economy is probably not a winning strategy.

"We can restore Detroit's supremacy in the automotive world," McCain said at the Andiamo Celebrity Showroom. "I'm optimistic."

For McCain, this may prove to be too little damage control too late. The net result of the Republican candidates' intense focus on the economy, the auto industry in particular, is that John McCain is suddenly behind on the one count he always thought he had sewn up: experience.

"Voters since the New Hampshire Primary have all talked about change. However, when asked which is more important to voters in their presidential choice, `experience' or `being an agent of change,' almost seven in ten (69%) say experience while 20% say being an agent of change. Romney leads by 2% with those saying experience and he leads by more than 2:1 among those who say being an agent of change is most important in their presidential choice," Mitchell concluded.

Update [2008-1-14 20:32:12 by Todd Beeton]:Oh yeah, and yet another factor that may reduce the number of Indies and Dems voting in the GOP primary tomorrow: the weather forecast calls for snow throughout the state.