Gallup Saturday 10-18 Obama 50(-) McCain 42(-1)

[RamboLiberal]

LV(Expanded) Obama 50(-1) McCain 46(+1)
LV Obama 49(-) McCain 47(-)

http://www.gallup.com/Home.aspx

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. Among likely voters gap narrowed. Dang it!

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111121/Gallup-Daily-Likely-Voters-Expanded.aspx

[dennis4868]

2. anyone have any idea...

why the gap would narrow like that when LV are involved?

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. The likley voter models are truly questionable this year

The "traditional" likely voter model is built around 2004 turn-outs and methodologies that tie turn-outs to previous elections. They assume that turn-out of registered voters will be in line with or at least not at significant variation from, previous turn-outs. Whether such a model will hold true this year is another question altogether. Note that even under the highly favorable conditions of the 2004 turn-out numbers for the GOP, McCain is losing, and Obama doesn't witness any significant erosion of his position. Even if McCain picks up 66% of the remaining votes (an extremely unlikely scenario), he will still lose.

The "expanded" turn-out model is purely and simply untested. It purports to take into account the present political environment and shifts in registration data, but nobody knows if it does so accurately, because it is a new invention meant to account for THIS YEAR'S election. It was developed because the traditional model would seem to be at variance with conditions on the ground (not least being the remarkable ground operation developed by the Obama team). Whether it works in another matter.

What all these polls tell us is simple: we need to work to get out the vote in numbers that defy the 2004 turnout, and that exceed the expectations of the expanded likely voter model, even though Obama would win under both these models. The question will be whether we can get the new voters and heavy pro-Obama populations to the actual polling place to cast their ballots. If we can do that in large numbers, it will be a blow out. If we can't, it will be close, but trends still point to an Obama victory.

The most positive news about all these polls is that Obama's support has seemed to have solidified at around 50%. If that's the case, it is extremely difficult to break such a line this late in the game. Moreover, the huge numbers in early voters may make any such attempt moot, since the solidified Obama support may have already cast ballots by November 4, making the last weeks of the election cycle to some extent moot.

[madokie]

5. I hear on the m$m that the young are not likely to vote or some such

they're sure hoping that 'cause if the young vote this time the :puke: 'mcpalin' team is toast

[FVZA_Colonel]

9. Aren't they really saying this because the young supposedly haven't turned out in years past?

What basis do they have to claim enthusiasm amongst young voters, which has been so high so far, will just magically vanish on election day?

[Hokie]

6. 1% changes in polls are meaningless

This is in what is called the "statistical noise" level.

Let me try to explain. I am not a statistician but I understand basic probability theory:

Let's say there are 100 MILLION voters out there. This is a low number but close enough. Imagine Obama voters are blue gum balls and imagine McCain voters are red gum balls. Now imagine that not all the gum balls are the same. Some are really, really blue or red and will never change colors. Some are pale red and might even turn blue depending on the latest news or whether a guy with a McCain bumper sticker cut them off yesterday. You are Mr. Gallup and you have to figure out the total number of blue and red balls in the gigantic jar (that is opaque so you can't look into it). Since it would take two lifetimes to count all the balls you employ this handy dandy thing called statistics and you pay the money to have someone pull about 1000 balls out of the jar and see what color they are (or make random phone calls). Mr. Bernoulli figured out that for totally random things like coin flips that the the larger the sample size the better chance that the count represents what is really in the jar. He even calculated that for about 1000 samples that you have about a 95% chance that the sample count is within +/- 3.5%. This is called the "Margin of Error". Most polls will tell you what this "margin of error" is and let you think that it could never, never be outside that MOE. Guess what. Even under the best of circumstances where all the balls are pure blue or red the real count is wrong by more than the MOE about 1 time in every 20. That means that, on average, more than once a month any one of these fancy polls is wrong by more than the MOE. It gets even better (or worse depending on how you look at it). Voters are not like balls that never change color. Mr. Gallop has to try to guess which voters are likely to vote because those are the ones that determine who really wins. He does this by asking if they they voted in the last few elections and from other questions. He may not know that even though you haven't voted for years but you are really stirred up about this one and are going to vote come hell or high water. To make things even worse almost everyone has answering machines and caller ID. He has to dial about 8 phone numbers at random to get one valid answer. Mr. Gallup has done this polling for a lot of years and is pretty good at guessing the number of balls. However, he can never get better than the limits than Mr. Bernoulli set for him a long time ago.

This is a graphical representation of margin of error from a great post by RiverStone here a while back:

[MidwestTransplant]

4. The race is getting tighter. It's a fact. Not unexpected though, IMO.

[4lbs]

7. I've always expected Obama to have a 5% advantage over McCain on election day.

Any thoughts of an Obama "blowout" victory over McCain should be stopped right now. It is unrealistic to think that Obama would win by double-digits over McCain in the national vote. Obama 56%, McCain 41%, and 3% Other? Puhhhleeeze.


I think it will be Obama 51%, McCain 46%, and 3% Other in the national popular vote.

[Cush]

8. last night on "Real Time" Frank Lunzt said he thinks Obama will win by about 5 points

according to his polling & info