I borrowed this chart from Washington Monthly

[CatWoman]

Its a table showing a history of Gallup polls taken on Labor Day weekend. This year's race is the closest in history, matched only by the 1960 contest between Kennedy and Nixon.

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Kennedy won in '60.

So it's pretty similar to what will happen to Kerry.

Hawkeye-X

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. GOTV

Get Out The Vote. We do. We win.

[cheshire]

3. Didn't Truman win and look at that huge difference.

[acmavm]

4. Yep. Hence the very famous and very WRONG headline:

DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN.

[BillZBubb]

5. Another important point:

This year's Repug convention ended right before Labor Day, so the Chimperor has an unfair one week propaganda fest going into this poll. Subtract 4 points from Chimp and give one to Kerry. That's about what the numbers would be if the RNC was mid-August.