A poll by USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times in California reports that Mitt Romney holds a whopping +19% lead over Rick Santorum in the GOP presidential race, at 42% to 23%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 12% and Ron Paul at 10%.

In case you're wonderful about other GOP primary states, here a breakdown of the standing of the GOP field in several of the larger states. In CA, PA, and VA, at least, Gingrich appears to be in the lead. Given the erosion of Gingrich's support in most recent polling, however, PollTrack suggests that these results should be view with a good degree of skepticism. In any case, Newt Gingrich leads by considerable margins in the key states:

CALIFORNIA (Public Policy Institute): Gingrich 33%, Romney 25%, Paul 9%, Bachmann 7%, Perry 4%, Santorum 4% and Huntsman 2%.

PENNSYLVANIA (Susquehanna Polling and Research):  Gingrich 8%, Bachmann 6%, and Perry 2%.

VIRGINIA (Public Policy Polling survey): Gingrich 41%, Romney 15%, Perry 8%, Bachmann 8%, Santorum 6%, Paul 6% and Huntsman 3%.

A new Field Poll in California reports: Mitt Romney "holds a solid lead over his 2012 GOP presidential rivals among the state's Republican voters . . . Romney is preferred by 25 percent of registered GOP voters, giving the former Massachusetts governor a double-digit lead over each of his challengers. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, viewed as Romney's leading competitor for the nomination, barely registered in the poll, earning just 3 percent support . . .

Romney's closest competition comes from two candidates who haven't even joined the race to deny Democratic President Obama a second term: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (17 percent), and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (10 percent). If Giuliani is taken out of the field, Romney's lead widens - to 30 percent and a more than 2-to-1 lead over Palin at 12 percent in second position, the poll shows."

With its treasure trove of 55 winner take all Electoral Votes, California is important to President Obama's reelection prospects in 2012. A new analysis, suggests that the Democrats are well positioned in the state. A Los Angeles Times/USC poll reports that California voters, by a wide margin, are reluctant to support GOP candidates. "Strikingly, almost one in five California voters said they would never cast a ballot for a Republican," the survey reports. "Among Latinos, that rose to almost one in three. Only 5% of California voters were as emphatically anti-Democrat . . . The negative overlay both explained and helped determine the fates of the party's candidates in November. As a GOP tide swept the nation, Republicans here lost all statewide offices, with one contest, for attorney general, still unresolved but leaning toward the Democrat. Republicans here also failed to gain any congressional seats and lost a legislative seat."

Before Republicans start celebrating what some predict may be a massive victory in November, they may want to take notice of one sobering phenomenon: In Colorado and Arizona, Public Policy Polling reports that Hispanic voters are now swinging dramatically towards Democrats in the wake of Arizona's new immigration law. PPP continues: "Hispanics in the Mountain West are leaning much more strongly toward the Democrats since the Arizona law was passed. The big question then becomes whether there are white voters who are going to go Republican this fall who wouldn't have if that bill hadn't been passed. We don't see any evidence of that happening yet." This trend could easily shift into other states with significant Hispanic populations, effecting very close race in states as disparate as California, Ohio, and Florida, not to mention Colorado and Arizona. Stay tuned. This could be the sleeper phenomenon of the 2010 cycle.

While Obama was able to count on an increase in intensity of support and turnout among African-American, Hispanic, and young voters, his victory was not built on a surge of voters (as his campaign had hoped). According to Bloomberg News: The Democrats "bet on an unprecedented surge of new voters to carry him to victory last month . . . but [Obama] won without the record turnout . . .  About 130 million Americans voted, up from 122 million four years ago. Still, turnout fell short of the 140 million voters many experts had forecast. With a little more than 61 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, the 2008 results also didn't match the record 63.8 percent turnout rate that helped propel President John F. Kennedy to victory in 1960."The reasons for this shortfall were complex and varied: "Many disaffected Republicans stayed home. Young voters, particularly those without college degrees, didn’t turn out in the numbers that the Obama campaign projected. In states where the presidential race wasn’t in doubt -- such as Obama strongholds in California and New York, or reliably Republican outposts such as Oklahoma and Utah -- turnout was lower than in 2004."

With California's 55 electoral votes, Barack Obama is now president-elect of the United States.

Barack Obama will most probably become the next president of the United States within the next half hour, with California and Washington placing him over the 270 EV threshold. A very historic moment is upon us, after one of the most amazing US presidential cycles of the past half century. PollTrack has been honored to guide our loyal and enthusiastic visitors, to listen to what you have to say, and together producing a new and exciting website all about understanding the complexities of a very complex election.

PollTrack's FINAL election day daily tracking poll average puts Obama in the lead by +6.1%--51.6% to 45.5%. One poll indicates that undecided voters have moved sharply in McCain's direction (GWU/Battleground-Tarrance model), another indicates a big shift of undecided and persuadable voters for Obama (IBD/TIPP). One thing to consider: with Obama racking up enormous margins in many of the nation's most populous states (CA, NY, IL, MA, for example), leads as high as +25% or more, as well as many of the Kerry-blue states--and McCain taking a number of red states by very modest margins--this final tracking number may not reflect the relative closeness in a number of the remaining swing and battleground states.

Today's daily tracking poll average indicates a comfortable national aggregate lead of +6.6% for the Democrat, 50.6% to 44%. Still, with Obama up as much as +25% in states with some of the largest populations--such as CA, NY, MA, IL, MI--this national number may not reflect the relativeness closeness of the race in several key battleground states, including OH, NC, and FL. Much of today's polling continues to indicate an unusually large bloc of undecided or still persuadable voters. IBD/TIPP puts the figure at an amazing 9.5% undecided. A just issued CBS News periodic poll indicates a 6% undecided block. And Rasmussen still indicates that 10% of voters remain uncertain, lean to one candidate, or intend to vote for a third party candidate. The large undecided bloc that continues to register in some polls is unusually high the day before a national cycle, particularly one with as much voter enthusiasm as this one. Where will these voters wind up, if and when they vote?

This afternoon, four of five tracking polls out today report that the race has tightening over the past 24 hours (except for the erratic Zobgy survey). Today's PollTrack daily tracking poll average indicates that Obama's lead is down -1.3% from yesterday to 49.8% to 44.8%, for an aggregate advantage of +5% DEM. One poll, TIPP, the most accurate in 2004, reports a dramatic tightening of the race (Obama by +2%, 47% to 45%): "The race tightened again Sunday as independents who'd been leaning to Obama shifted to McCain to leave that key group a toss-up. McCain also pulled even in the Midwest, moved back into the lead with men, padded his gains among Protestants and Catholics, and is favored for the first time by high school graduates." One other thing to consider, with Obama's national lead down to 5%--and his lead in high-population Kerry-blue states such as NY, IL, CA, MA, and NJ ballooning to 15-25% in most--the shrinking national total might also suggest that the races in more highly competitive battleground states may be drawing closer. Stay tuned.

In a sign of the economic disparity between the two presidential campaigns, Nielsen reports that Obama continues to outspend McCain in the key battleground states: "In Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, Obama placed 155% more ad units (62,022 vs. 24,273) than McCain between October 6 and October 26, 2008... Obama's advertising continues to be heaviest in Florida, where he ran 18,909 ads between October 6 and October 26, outpacing McCain's 5,702 ads by 232%." Over the past few days, Nielsen reports, McCain has closed the gap slightly. More eye-popping, perhaps, is the Republican's newest ad buy: Montana, a state George W. Bush won by nearly twenty points four years ago." Yet, despite this enormous disparity, the race remains close in most of these states, though all, except PA, lean Republican.

PollTrack has received a number of E-mails from Democrats concerned about Obama's chances in November. The short answer: no candidate is decisively ahead and the race is fairly even both in national support and electoral votes. It is clear that McCain came out of his convention stronger than Obama. It is also true that the momentum is now with the Republican. But the race is close enough that either candidate can win. By contrast, President Bush came out of his convention in 2004 with a sizable bounce that he maintained throughout much of September. Strong debate performances by Sen. John Kerry allowed the Democrat to narrow the gap considerably, though not entirely close it.

PollTrack suspects that the debates will be an important factor in this election. Since 1960 in presidential races in which debates were held (1960, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004), the debates were usually decisive. Indeed in contested cycles, where an incumbent did not sail to victory--races that include all but 1984 and 1996--the debates were the decisive factor in most instances. Here are a few debate bloopers and  successes that really made a difference: Nixon's listless appearance and five-o'clock shadow in 1960; Ford's gaffe about Poland in 1976; Dukakis' cold and dispassionate response to a question about whether his liberal views about crime and punishment would be shaken if his own wife were raped; Reagan's ability to convince a skeptical nation that he was not an extremist in 1980; and George H. W. Bush caught on camera glancing at his watch while his opponent, Bill Clinton, was addressing dire economic issues in 1992.

In the short term: watch to see if McCain's bounce translates into improvement in the statewide contest for electoral votes. Right now, the answer is a mixed bag: McCain appears to be benefiting form a sizable bounce in Southern states and smaller but marked improvement in number of western, plains and Rocky Mountain states. Obama's numbers remain very strong in New England (save New Hampshire). Numbers for the mid-west, rust belt, and mid-Atlantic states are unclear at this point, though Obama appears to be loosing a little ground in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. New York and California seem solidly behind the Democrat.