Two polls show that the amendment might get defeated while two others show a slight lead for anti-gay marriage activists.

On Thursday, the St. Cloud State University Survey was released showing that 47 percent of Minnesotans thought the constitution should not be amended and 44 percent said it should. The difference is within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, making the result a statistical tie.

The St. Cloud Times notes that the margin changes drastically depending on what type of phone the user answered: 48 percent of landline phone users supported the amendment compared to 39 percent of cell phone users.

A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll released on Wednesday found that 46 percent of registered voters support the amendment while 40 percent said they would vote against it. Interestingly, the poll also asked whether someone would not vote on the issue, which is considered a “no” vote in Minnesota. Ten percent said they did not plan to vote at all on the question bringing the total of opposition and under-vote to 50 percent, within the poll’s 4.3 percent margin of error making the question a statistical tie.

The landline versus mobile split was also present in the SurveyUSA poll. Only 34 percent of mobile users planned to vote for the amendment while 50 percent of landline users planned to vote for it.

The Star Tribune released its Minnesota poll on Tuesday showing that 48 percent of Minnesotans support the amendment, 43 percent opposed it and 8 percent are undecided. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, meaning that this poll as well was a statistical tie.

The result matches closely with what SurveyUSA found but completely opposite of the St. Cloud State University poll.

The one poll that was an outlier in this week was a poll by QEV Analytics commissioned by Minnesota for Marriage, the group advocating for the gay marriage ban. In that poll, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the amendment and 40 percent would vote against it.

Minnesota for Marriage released the poll in response to the Star Tribune poll, which the group calls biased.

“The Star Tribune survey showing us with a five point lead substantially understates our true position. This is not surprising given the newspaper’s historic bias against conservative issues and candidates,” Minnesota for Marriage chair John Helmberger said in a statement. “We are releasing our own survey, which utilized the actual wording of the amendment question being presented to voters, to show that we enter the campaign in a very strong position.”

The QEV poll excluded media and political employees and their families from the poll. It asked, “Are you, or anyone in your household, employed with an advertising agency, newspaper, television or radio station, or political campaign?” Anyone who answered in the affirmative was excluded from the poll.

The poll also differed in that it heavily sampled older Minnesotans. Only 35 percent of the poll’s respondents were under age 50, while 60 percent were 50 years old and over.

QEV has been the pollster of choice for the National Organization for Marriage which is part of the Minnesota for Marriage coalition.

Take this latest one Sam Stein reports on for The Huffington Post, showing that 77 percent of Americans think it’s important to have a “choice” between government-run health insurance and private coverage.  That poll comes from Survey USA. Meanwhile, Rasmussen Reports  found just 34 percent of Americans support a health care reform plan without a public option. Okay — so far, so good.

So how is it that Rasmussen’s last poll on health care reform found that only 42 percent of voters supported the Democrats’ proposed health reform plan, when that plan still clearly included a “public option”? Back then (last week), the whole Democratic proposal for health reform was sinking, leading President Obama and some members of his administration to start backing away from the government-run option and proclaiming their newfound flexibility.

Well, that Rasmussen poll referred to the Obama plan as simply “the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats.” It seems significant that none of the Rasmussen questions included the word “choice” in them. And as pollsters for NBC found earlier this week, without the word “choice,” only 43 percent of the public favored “creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies.”

Meanwhile, another Rasmussen poll earlier this month found that “51% of the nation’s voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies.” I guess that’s when they’re not offered a “choice” between the two.

If this confirms anything, it may be that Americans just don’t like to commit. MoveOn.org, which commissioned the SurveyUSA poll and supports the public option, was wise to that.

Still, as Stein notes, when read an actual description of the president’s health care plan (when it still included the public option), 51 percent of SurveyUSA respondents said they “favored” the approach; 43 percent opposed it. Asked the same question by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, 53 percent of respondents said they favored the president’s plan, and 43 percent opposed it.

Obama wins just his two home states of Hawaii and Illinois and the Republican-proof District of Columbia. The electoral vote count: 510 to 28.

It’s safe to say that tonight’s electoral map will look just a bit different.

NOTE: Thanks to my good friend and Washington Post alum, Laura Yao, for the tip.

Obama leads McCain 51 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, the Suffolk University poll found, echoing other recent polls that show the Democrat surging in battleground states.

“Barack Obama has built a coalition of suburban DC-area progressives from the north, African-American voters from the south, and young voters statewide,” David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston, said in a statement. “That broad-based support suggests a 44-year Republican run in the Old Dominion State, dating back to Lyndon Johnson’s victory in 1964, is in jeopardy.”

The poll suggests that last Thursday’s vice presidential debate helped the Democratic ticket. Three-fourths of likely voters watched the debate, which tied for the second most-watched debate ever, and 46 percent said Democrat Joe Biden bested Republican Sarah Palin, while 26 percent said Palin won and 20 percent said neither did. One-third of respondents said the debate made them more likely to vote Obama, while 18 percent said they were more likely to support McCain, and 47 percent said the debate didn’t affect their decision…

The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, Suffolk said.

At first glimpse, this poll seems to be what the McCain campaign likes to refer to as an “outlier.” Surely, the race must be much closer.

Then along comes this SurveyUSA poll of Virginians, which found Obama leading McCain in the state by a margin of 53 percent to 43 percent. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percent.

According to SurveyUSA, Obama has made remarkable gains among white men, turning a 10-point deficit just after the Republican National Convention into an 11-point lead. That’s a 21-point reversal.

McCain no longer leads in any region of the state. In Northeastern VA, which includes the DC suburbs, Obama leads by 24 points. In Central Virginia, home of the Confederate White House, the Museum of the Confederacy and Appomattox, Obama today leads by 8. In Southeastern Virginia, Obama leads by 11. In the Shenandoah, where John McCain led by 24 points one month ago, Obama and McCain today tie.

Critics will point out that this was a poll of Virginia residents and not limited to likely voters. However, this is the third major survey in the past week to place Obama’s lead at nine percentage points or more in the state.

According to RealClearPolitics, Obama leads by an average of 4.9 points in recent major polls. The electoral handicapping Website FiveThirtyEight.com now gives Obama an 81 percent chance of winning Virginia — which doesn’t reflect these new polls, and that figure is likely to increase.

The McCain campaign is well aware that a loss in Virginia almost certainly indicates that it’s lights out for this election. It’s not surprising, then, that McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin will appear at two rallies in downstate Virginia next week — in Virginia Beach and Richmond.