Reply #6: The Pew poll was why I posted this.

[longship]

This morning, one of the prognosticators (looking for citation, but not finding it) cited the internals on this poll and decried that Pew somewhat arbitrarily upped the ante for the Repukes strictly based on historic data, not on any actual information about this year.

Let's get this straight right now. There is no reason to expect that this election cycle is going to be in any way like previous ones. If a pollster changes their analysis model based on such an arbitrary criterion as "Republicans always close strong", that pollster is not doing their job.

This election cycle one cannot ignore the global indicators which are dramatically and monolithically favoring Democrats. It very well may be that the Democrats and those very pissed-off Republicans and Independents are going to be the ones who will finish strong.

The question is, What criteria do the pollsters have in changing their models in the eleventh hour? If it is merely "Repukes finish strongly." I must reject that. If there is actual data to indicate that this time that would be the *only* valid reason to change the model. What I am hearing is that there are no such indications this election.

The only conclusion I can reach is that the pollsters are diddling with their models for the sole purpose of showing a tightening race.