Missouri has not been widely viewed as a top-tier battleground state in the presidential race -- it's competitive, as usual, but it will surprise most pundits if it does not ultimately land in John McCain's column.
Recent polls have shown some tightening, though, so perhaps that's a reason that preliminary Nielsen Co. ratings for the nation's top metropolitan areas found the St. Louis market with the largest TV audience for Friday night's debate.
Nielsen reported that a majority of households with televisions in and around the city -- 52.1% -- were tuned to the McCain-Barack Obama faceoff.
The "share" figure was even more impressive -- among all TVs in use as the debate aired, 82% in the St. Louis area had it on. That was far and away the highest such number in the major markets. St. Louis will host the vice presidential debate Thursday.
The area where the debate attracted the smallest audience? McCain's backyard.
The household rating for the Phoenix-Prescott market was 24.8% (with a 47% share), according to the preliminary report.
Next to last: Los Angeles.
In both of these latter cases, viewership no doubt was lower than in many other places because the debate started at 6 p.m. local time.
Overall, in 55 of the nation's top 56 markets (Houston was excluded because of disarray caused by Hurricane Ike), the debate's rating was 33.2% -- impressive for a Friday night.
Nielsen promises its complete numbers Monday.
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Meanwhile, back in Alaska
Sarah Palin may be the darling of the United Nations, but back home in Alaska, the bloom on the state rose is fading a bit.
Poll numbers released last week show the Alaska governor's approval rating has taken its biggest hit since her election in 2006. "The honeymoon is coming to an end," Ivan Moore Research of Anchorage said in its report.
True, Palin's approval rating of 68% surely must cause envy among President Bush and members of Congress. But the new figure for Palin is down from a high of 82% in January, which she replicated in the days after her surprise selection Aug. 29 as John McCain's running mate.
Also, her disapproval rating in the survey of 500 likely voters conducted Sept. 20-22 was 27% -- double what it was at the beginning of the month. The survey's margin of error was plus or minus 4.4%.
Predictably, the biggest erosion in good feelings about Palin occurred among Alaska Democrats. But there also was a measurable slip in her standing among independent or third-party voters.
