Not really sure I understand what’s going on with Ras’s national polls this last week. He’s basically saying that of the undecideds, O is getting ALL of them *plus* R losing a point of support. Historically, this makes no sense.
It also makes no sense from the internals, as well as state polling. Which is wrong? It could very well be a tied race, but plenty of times a tied race doesn’t actually turn out to be that close at all.
Put it this way, if the race was really tied nationally, O would be up by a small amount in IA, WI, and NH, and up several points in MI and PA. As I understand, the race is deadlocked in those states per Ras, so something is wrong somewhere.
What's even more bizarre is that the state polls don't seem to have moved in tandem. Supposedly OH, MI, MN, WI, PA, VA, IA, NH, NC, CO and FL are all within a few points of each other. And yet these state results in 2008 were spread by 14 points (difference between FL and MI) with the rest in between. Not to mention the fact that media polls show FL and NC competitive when it's generally acknowledged that they'll be won by Romney. So is Obama overrepresented in those states in order to make it look competitive? If so, is the reverse true in places like MN, MI and PA (Romney is propped up to fuel the narrative of a close race)? Or can we assume that FL polling is biased toward Obama and thus so are the other states' polls?
If someone can explain this result as anything other than poll manipulation, I'd like to hear it.