Consistent: The topline results — Republicans are ahead. Inconsistent: The margins. NPR measures Obama’s job approval at (41/56) in states with contested Senate races, and an abysmal (29/67) among independents.  But on the generic Senate ballot, the GOP leads by just three, fueled by a 16-point advantage among those aforementioned independents:

In case you’re curious, NPR’s partisan sample is a reasonable, if slightly generous, D+4.  Fox News’ pollster included two more states in their survey, but excluded Alaska.  Results:

Unless I’m missing something glaringly obvious (Fox’s poll sample is D+0, in line with 2010), I can’t quite wrap my mind around the 12 point disparity between these two polls.  Any guesses?  In any case, there’s a subject on which the polls agree, down to the percentage point: Obamacare disapproval.  Both surveys peg opposition to the law at 55 percent, outpacing support by double digits.  Some things never change.  I’ll leave you with Dan McLaughlin’s top take-away from NPR’s internals:

If this is the battleground state electorate, the Democrats have problems http://t.co/lwZzCC5Oxf pic.twitter.com/fGJ6dhj10B

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) October 3, 2014

Speaking of Dan, you may recall his detailed historical analysis of Senate races over recent electoral cycles, which predicted that many of 2014’s individual races would eventually fall in line with the national environment.  I’d say his predictions have held up pretty well so far — with the major caveats that (a) four weeks is a long time in politics, and (b) the Kansas mess is a confounding wrinkle in the path to +6.