The RAND poll today shows Democrat voter participation up from historical pattern by at least 3% since the Denver debate. It may sound comical to describe 3% as "skyrocketing." But for a leaden historical pattern such as this, that is a sea change.
The trend line over recent months has voter likelihood among Democrats up from 80% to 83% at a bare minimum. The 7% spike today is an exclamation point for this change. If this gets to 85% on Election Day, Obama gets a landslide and the Senate could end up with a 56- or 57-seat majority.
So what has caused this change? It is not a change to Obama. He is the same guy he was in 2004, 2007 and 2008.
Perception of Romney is what has changed.
After the first debate, working on his most blatant lies has been the steady tide of these recent weeks.
All of this is moving to the worse for Romney. Here is the "poaching" graph from RAND -- it shows voter changeovers. This has improved and then gone back in favor of Obama since October 20th:
That performances at the first debate, particularly, gave Romney's opposition 27 obvious, generally stupid lies to work on. We have enough ammunition to last through Election Day.
Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson on Romney: "Wacky nuts."
Personal items are also hurting him. A cult prophecy (big with Glenn Beck, not part of standard Mormon works) and that auto accident in France. It all adds on to a perception that there is something not quite right with Mitt Romney.