Hope someone can answer your question.

I checked Gallup and did not see a 12 point swing.

IMO there is no way there would be that big a swing in that time period.

But I don't think it's possible.

If every day in the tracking period were identical then you could figure out the one day results when the spread changed. But consider this example - a three day period is used for the reported spread, with the oldest day replaced by the newest day each new day. What if the oldest day had Obama leading by 20, the middle day had them tied, and the most recent day had Romney leading by 20. The tracking poll would show them tied. Then there was a debate and on the day after that Obame led by 10. The updated tracking poll averaging the 3 most recent days would report Romey leading by 3, a 3 point gain, even though Obama did much better the day after the debate.

So unless you know the individual days results I don't think you can determine the most recent day's results from a change in the three-day average.

Gallup Daily Tracking...

They use a 7 day rolling average. SInce the Sep.t 19-25th survey result there have been 10 results. Each day one day drops off, another is added on. They do this to stabilize the data by having significant sample sizes.

He has fluctuated between 49% and 50% each day of those 10 results. So there's no way he could have lost 12 points. 2 days of sample are now post-debate. Romney has had 3 days at 45% and now 46%. All I see is some tightening in the Gallup poll.

Ipsos. They use a 4-5 day tracking poll average again dropping a day and adding a new one each day. Since Monday, Obama was at 46% and today he went to 47%. (two days of that poll are post-debate.) Again, Romney's numbers have come up some and it has tightened. But there is not going to be a huge swing in the next day or so.

Rasmussen. It is a piece of shit poll. They DO NOT call cell-only households which skew younger, more ethnic, lower income. Those demos are typically more Democrats. In addition, they use automated interviews by computers. People can easily screw with the results, lie, etc. There is no randomness to their sample which is a problem. Kids can answer the phone and push the buttons.

I worked in survey research for 10 years. I know how this stuff works. It is too bad that people spend lots of time opining about shit they know nothing about. It tends to whip people into frenzies many times for no reason.