As someone who is (actually) paid to monitor political polls, waking up each morning is like stepping into the ocean and getting slam-dunked by a monster wave when it comes to the number of surveys on the governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the House special election in upstate New York.

So, what if you are just tuning in now?

I'm not going to inundate you with a lot of numbers from the "toplines" and "internals" of all the polls. But here are my general takeaways.

No one is very happy in New Jersey. They don't like the track the state is on. They despair over the economy. They brood over property taxes. They don't like Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine whether it comes to his favorabilty or job approval numbers. They once liked former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, the Republican, but after getting pounded by Corzine's TV ads, his positives have turned negative in the eyes of the voters. Even independent Chris Daggett, who Christie aimed his ads at when it appeared that Daggett's candidacy was helping Corzine, has heaped mud on on Daggett.

After trailing Christie by a big margin early on, the polls in recent weeks have Corzine and Christie trading leads, mostly within or near the margins of error. Daggett's support in the various polls has ranged from 7 percent to 20 percent.

So how will the wildcard of Daggett affect the race? The polls conflict about who the second choice of Daggett voters would be. A lot of Daggett supporters say they might change their minds as the moment of truth approaches on Election Day, as often happens with third party candidates. (I don't want to get into a brawl about that with former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, even though in the movie in which I most remember him, "Predator," he got whacked early on in the action. I'm not so worried about third-partyers Bernie Sanders or Joe Lieberman). In any event, New Jersey is still a toss-up.

In Virginia, the earlier polls that showed Democrat Creigh Deeds competitive with Republican Bob McDonnell were an illusion. Deeds benefited initially from a bounce after his upset victory in the Democratic primary against former Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, who brought a lot of money but not enough votes to his candidacy. And, for a while, Deeds rode, to his benefit, the revelation of McDonnell's graduate thesis in which he said women who work contribute to an anti-family atmosphere. But that flap has long since faded.

As Deeds' campaign has faltered, his level of support among Democrats trails McDonnell's backing among Republicans as the perception grows that Deeds is the loser. McDonnell also leads Deeds by double-digit margins on all the issues of concern to Virginians except the environment, where the two are within the margin of error of each other. McDonnell enjoys a big lead among independents who Public Policy Polling says are 35 percent of its samples.

Inevitably, in off-year elections, pundits opine about what the results will say about the incumbent president and political party. Obama still fares well in New Jersey while his approval and favorability ratings are more evenly divided in Virginia. But the "Obama factor" appears less about his popularity and policies than about the dynamics of the races this year compared to the 2008 presidential election. Both Corzine and Deeds are underperforming among Democratic constituent groups compared to 2008 when Obama's candidacy energized the party's base and boosted turnout.

As far as the upstate New York House race to fill the seat vacated by Republican John McHugh, who Obama tapped to be Army Secretary, that contest is more about conservatives challenging the GOP establishment by lining up behind Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman against Republican Dede Scozzafava. The result of that has been to give Democrat Bill Owens a slight lead in the three-way race.