There's no thinking about it. Rasmussen had an article last week stating that the gap between Dems and Pubbies had closed to 5.7% (and this was immediately after Palin's selection and before the GOP convention). Yet he's been using a model that has about 9% points more Dems than Pubbies. That's due to a rolling 90-day average he uses. No problem. He's completely up front about his methodology.
So if you think that Dems will outvote Pubbies by about 9 points in November, the race is indeed about 50/50. If you believe the 5.7% number is accurate, then McCain/Palin are still enjoying their bump.
If, like me, you think (based on new enthusiasm, fundraising numbers and registration numbers) that the gap will continue to close through November, then McCain/Palin are in pretty good shape in what is still a close race.
I agree with you about the methodology.
I said this in previous posts that we still have to look at this election as our side being 10 points down and give it all we can.
But at this point, only thing that worries me is the GOTV efforts and ground game as NoBama is pretty strong there and dont know if our side is as strong as 2004. But I am sure Schimdt has that under control..
What I don’t understand is how Rasmussen’s polls fail to reflect a 23 point swing in white women voters in favor of McCain. That is a pretty big share of the voting public and a big swing. For the Rasmussen polls to be showing about what they were before the conventions he must be seeing a similar swing in Obama’s direction from some other demographic group. I’d like to know what that group is.
“So if you think that Dems will outvote Pubbies by about 9 points in November,”
Well, then, let’s hope the young Obama crowd has smoked too much the night before to limp over to the polls.