SurveyUSA's released a bunch of new state presidential polls for Ohio, New Mexico, Missouri, Minnesota, California, Alabama, Kansas, and Massachusetts. There's some rough news for the GOP in Ohio and Missouri: McCain trails both Obama and Clinton in states that Bush won in 2000 and 2004. No Republican has won the presidency without Ohio. Hillary Clinton is polling stronger in Ohio: she leads McCain by 10, but Obama only leads him by 3. McCain leads Clinton strongly in Kansas, but his lead over Obama is smaller. Massachusetts has a very interesting result. Clinton leads McCain by nine there, but Obama only leads McCain by two points: 48-46. So Obama seems at the moment to be more competitive in some states, but, in states like Ohio and Massachusetts (despite the backing of MA governor Deval Patrick and both MA senators Kerry and Kennedy), he seems to lag behind Clinton. For the moment at least....

UPDATE: A reader wonders if the SurveyUSA poll for Missouri might be weighting Democrats too much, claiming that a 14-point gap in Democrat-Republican identification (41-27) to be unusual for polling in Missouri. And, if you check SurveyUSA's last presidential head-to-head polling for Missouri, on January 14, you see only a 7-point identification gap (38D-31R). Under those conditions, McCain wins against both Clinton and Obama (winning by 10 points over the latter). Of course, a seven-point swing in five weeks could happen, but those numbers could swing back, too. Just a detail to keep in mind....