It's the most polled (last poll yesterday), has the most respondents (2825), and shows a slight uptick for Obama gained by getting more undecided votes rather than taking any from McCain.
Obama 52%, McCain 41%, Other/Undecided 7%, Margin of Error 2%
www.nytimes.com/politics The map is very interesting.
2008-10-31T17:03:49Z
Many of these polls are done by Republicans (but companies aren't people). Gallup is owned by a solid Republican, but that still doesn't affect the polls.
Yes, polls are not actual voting but the spread between the polls says interesting things, and I believe it's tighter than it looks.
Sorry, I thought I would be reaching out to people who actually know what polling is and how it's done, and its limitations. My mistake.
2008-10-31T17:05:16Z
Visigoth: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. We shall see! I know the pollsters changed a lot of assumptions after the 2004 election.
HC Visigoth2008-10-31T16:28:55Z
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The 2004 Gallup polls had Bush ahead from about October 11th forward.
Of course, this is the popular vote only, which doesn't tell the complete story.
EDIT: OK, this is cool: electoral-vote.com lets you look at the 2004 electoral polls-of-polls for each day. 2nd link is to the one for Halloween '04, and Kerry was indeed ahead in the electoral vote, 293 to 246 for Bush.
But peeling it back, it's not a very strong story. Only 196 votes were "Strong/Weak Kerry", and the remaining were "barely." 229 were "Strong/Weak Bush" and 17 "barely."
So, Bush only needed to pick up 41 "barely" votes to win; Kerry needed 74. And that's how elections are lost. On this day, Kerry was only ahead by 2% in Florida, for example, where he eventually lost by 5 points.
Now, compare to where the race stands today. Obama leads 364 to 171; discounting the "barelys" again, it's 311/142. In fact, peeling it down to just the "strongs," it's 264 to 118. So at this point, Obama only needs 6 of the 47 "weak Dem" votes to win.
McCain needs *all* the Strong/Weak/Barely GOP votes, *plus* the 3 tie votes, all 53 "barely Dem" votes, and 43 of the 47 "weak Dem" votes.
I'm not counting my chickens, but it's a lot for McCain to ask for at this point.
To be honest with you I do not think too much about it or any of them. None of the polls never galloped my way. Another thing to remember is that people vote, not the polls. The numbers which are being projected can do a flip flop in a matter of seconds.
People should count their eggs until the chickens are hatched. This is going to be won a hair or should I say peach fuzz, or fine baby hair. Do not be easily fooled by these pollsters.
They survey a certain number of people along different lines of race, sex and education in a certain area usually in suburban or rural area very rarely in the urban areas.
It's encouraging, but anything can happen between now and Tuesday.
On a related note, why do people keep saying that "the polls showed Kerry (or Gore) winning" and they lost. No, the polls did not show that at the time.
There is not much to be said about polls. Anybody who is affiliated with these polling companies can 'rig' the results to render whatever is needed. Therefore, progress may be made by changing this or that in one's computer. The polls definitely can not be trusted. Peace!