* Public Policy Polling has quantified the “enthusiasm gap” in several states based on likely voter polling results from the past month…

From the pollster…

The states where the Democratic dropoff is 10 points or more- Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, and North Carolina- all have incredibly unpopular Democratic Governors who aren’t that strong even within their own parties. Obama’s still pretty solid in those states at least within his own party, but a sense that their party’s current leaders at the state level have not gotten the job done could be making Democrats less inclined to get out to the polls.

* Meanwhile, Rasmussen has a new poll out and the pollster finally added the Green Party nominee to the mix. That may have jumbled the results a bit. Ras still hasn’t added the Libertarian Party candidate, however, so we don’t yet have an accurate picture of the race. Numbers in brackets are from previous Rasmussen polls…

Kirk: 37% [40%, 40%, 41%, 39%, 42% 46%, 41%, 41%, 46%]

Giannoulias: 34% [42%, 40%, 43%, 40%, 39% 38%, 37%, 44%, 40%]

Jones: 12% [N/A]

Other: 3% [6%, 8%, 6%, 9%, 7% 5%, 8%, 5%, 4%]

Unsure: 14% [12%,12%, 10%, 12%, 12% 12%. 13%, 10%, 10%]

With leaners…

Kirk: 41% [45%]

Giannouolias: 37% [45%]

Jones: 9% [N/A]

Other: 5% [3%]

Unsure: 9% [8%]

The Giannoulias campaign points out that the Republican Rasmussen may be “agenda setting” again. Their polls in recent days haven’t matched up well with others, including Barbara Boxer (where Rasmussen had the Republican up and the Democrat down, contradicting the CNN/TIME poll) and Jack Conway (where Rasmussen had the Republican way up and CNN/TIME had it tied).

* From the pollster…

If leaners are not included, Kirk has 37% support to Giannoulias’ 34% and Jones’ 12%, suggesting as is often the case that support moves away from third party candidates to one of the major party nominees as Election Day approaches. In the previous survey, Giannoulias captured 42% of the vote to Kirk’s 40% when voters were asked their initial preference.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Kirk voters say they are already certain how they will vote in November, as do 53% of Giannoulias’ supporters and 40% of those who are backing Jones. […]

Eighty-two percent (82%) of GOP voters favor Kirk, a fifth-term U.S. congressman, while just 69% of Democrats support Giannoulias, currently the state’s elected treasurer. Green draws single-digit support from voters in both major parties and 13% of those who are not affiliated with either the Democrats or the Republicans. Kirk leads Giannoulias by more than two-to-one among these unaffiliated voters.

Giannoulias is viewed favorably by 42% of Illinois voters and unfavorably by 44%.

For Kirk, favorables are 45%, and unfavorables are 39%.

Twenty-six percent (26%) have a favorable opinion of Jones, an African-American journalist, while 30% regard him unfavorably. But 44% don’t know enough about the Green Party candidate to venture any opinion of him.

Only eight percent (8%) of Illinois voters rate the U.S. economy as good, while 56% of voters in President Obama’s home state describe the economy as poor. Twenty-six percent (26%) say the economy is getting better, but 46% believe it is getting worse.

Fifty-three percent (53%) approve of the president’s job performance, while 45% disapprove. Obama’s job approval ratings in Illinois havenot unchanged for months and are higher than the numbers he earns nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

* Methodology…

The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Illinois was conducted on September 7, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

* TPM PollTracker.