Holy Turning Tides!!

[Sir_Galahad]

Zogby now has McCain ahead and Rasmussen has them dead even in the National Polls.

True, that it is the State results that count but it is a good sign. If he can pull off Ohio and Pennsylvania, he has a damn good shot.

The fat lady is holding her breath now.

[TheCalvinator24]

Sir G, what's your source on this? The latest number son RCP aren't anywhere near that

[Jeemie]

Drudge is the source.

And I don't trust Zogby- his polls have been all over the place.

Hadn't heard the Rasmussen results, though.

I do believe the race is very close though- just based on the candidates' behaviors.

Both of them seem to be acting like they're campaigning from behind. Their internals are probably telling them things we're not seeing.

[SportsFan68]

Sir G, what's your source on this? The latest number son RCP aren't anywhere near that

I bet it's wishful thinking.

As always, I could be wrong about this.

[Jeemie]

More info- the Zogby poll was a one day poll with a small sample (400) that was non-representative (very few West Coast people in the sample).

Part of a three-day tracking poll that will probably still have Obama up by 3-4 when all is said and done.

It's not all "wishful thinking", though, sprots.

As I said, neither candidate is acting like it's a done deal.

You can say Obama just doesn't want his base to get overly-content.

I don't believe that.

[KillerTomato]

Sirge, you may want to double-check with reliable websites before you post.

Try fivethirtyeight.com(which, admittedly, is run by a Democrat and Obama supporter, but has a very transparent system for his work). Or realclearpolitics.com. Or pollster.com.

Tell the truth, would you trust numbers posted by the NY Times or MSNBC? So why would you trust Drudge, other than the fact that he's a Republican stooge (as much of one as Fox News -- who uses realclearpolitics on their own website -- considers anything associated with NBC)?

[franktangredi]

Sirge, you may want to double-check with reliable websites before you post.

Try fivethirtyeight.com(which, admittedly, is run by a Democrat and Obama supporter, but has a very transparent system for his work). Or realclearpolitics.com. Or pollster.com.

Tell the truth, would you trust numbers posted by the NY Times or MSNBC? So why would you trust Drudge, other than the fact that he's a Republican stooge (as much of one as Fox News -- who uses realclearpolitics on their own website -- considers anything associated with NBC)?

The most interesting thing I've seen in any poll was this statement in the Times today, and I don't think anybody can argue with it: "Roughly half of each candidate’s supporters said they were 'scared' of what the other candidate would do if elected."

Certainly the exagerrated, paranoid claims I've seen, here and elsewhere, on both sides bear this out. The good news is this means the other half on each side is relatively rational.

[peacock2121]

sirge is so cute.

[Sir_Galahad]

Big oops, here. I completely misheard the information. Sometime one hears what one wants to hear, eh?

Actually, the news was that McCain narrowed the margin by a point and is not actually leading by a point. Not
big news but not bad news either.

Sorry if I raised your blood pressure.

[silverscreenselect]

Big oops, here. I completely misheard the information. Sometime one hears what one wants to hear, eh?

Actually, the news was that McCain narrowed the margin by a point and is not actually leading by a point. Not
big news but not bad news either.

Sorry if I raised your blood pressure.

Zogby's daily portion of his poll had McCain slightly ahead. Zogby like all pollsters uses a running average, each day dropping the oldest results and replacing them. These figures are a smaller sample size and much more prone to random error. Zogby also releases less methodology about his polls than the other pollsters leading to wide speculation that he cooks the books especially very close to the election, to get the result he wants.

The overall direction of the polls has been towards McCain in the last few days, but whether that is enough remains to be seen. Plus, the early voting in many states is heavey (Rasmussen says almost a third of voters in their survey had already said they voted). Early voters are more prone to flat out lying for whatever reason since they can't say they're undecided.

For McCain to win, the polls would have to be wrong, which happened a lot during the primary season (If a candidate is picked by the polls to win by 20 and wins by 10, that's a bigger error than if is picked by 4 and loses by 2 but no one notices). This would mean either that the answers given to pollsters were incorrect or their sampling and weighing methods were off, both of which are distinct possibilities.