This smells like BS. I thought McCain led overall among independents in Gallup, but was down only due to a Dem oversample.
I read the Politico article (or at least skimmed it), and I don’t understand their claim that Obama leads 45-43 among white independents. When I go to Gallup’s internals, I don’t find this particular information. I find information for white voters and information for independent voters, but not both at the same time.
Here are three things I do know. One, most of the remaining undecideds are Independents. Two, most of the remaining undecideds are white voters. And three, by comparing current white voter numbers with the 2004 exit polls, I find that Obama is slightly underperforming Kerry and McCain is slightly more underperforming Bush — meaning that more of the remaining undecideds are likely Bush voters rather than Kerry voters.
And keep in mind that in any event, the Gallup internals reflect registered voters. There seems to be a pretty big gap right now between Gallup’s registered voter numbers and its traditional LV numbers (today it is 5 points; in 2004, the gap was 4 points in its final Gallup poll before the election).