I remember 2000 all too well. Bush had been trailing Gore through September, and then overtook him in October by hefty margins. In the final week, Bush was campaigning in California and New Jersey. Gore was campaigning nonstop 24/7 like a madman. His final rally brought him to Iowa at 4am in the snow and rain.
I went through the TIPP website through archive.org and they have this interesting write-up on the closing days. Sadly, the graphs no longer work:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010203001500/tipponline.com/elect/other/trends.htm
Just to give you an idea of how fast things can close, the below is a writeup TIPP did on its final poll result for 2000. (Yes, there was the DUI in the mix here).
http://web.archive.org/web/20010206053409/tipponline.com/elect/other/final.htm
BUSH HAS 2-POINT EDGE ON ELECTION DAY
Final IBD/CSM/TIPP Tracking Poll Shows
Today, Election Day, George W. Bush is ahead with a slim 2-point lead over Al Gore, the gap narrowing from a comfortable 9-point advantage Bush had on Saturday. The final result of what is the last of a series of daily tracking polls conducted for TIPP’s media partners is: Bush 47.9%, Gore 46.0%, Nader 3.7%, Other Candidates 2.4%.
The last 48 hours prior to Election Day saw dramatic changes in the run for the White House. After a neck-and-neck race during most of October, Bush secured a comfortable lead at the end of the month and maintained at least 5-points over the Vice President up until this past weekend.
Throughout this last week, Mr. Gore was struggling to break the 43-point resistance level (a known ceiling seen in the IBD/TIPP MetaPoll, a measure published since July 2000, which consolidates all leading national polls, weighting for accuracy, polling population and recentness.)
Things began to change during Sunday night’s polling, when Gore saw a surge in enthusiasm by Democrats, which continued into Monday night. The breakout was heavy, with a steady upward movement from 39% on Saturday to 42% on Sunday and 46% on Monday night.
Regionally, Gore consolidated his Northeast lead, while at the same time making substantial gains in the West in the last days of the campaign. Bush continued to lead comfortably in both the Midwest and the South.
Bush continues to lead among the large bloc of Investor Class voters (55% of likely voters, a group which we identified in the Voice of the Investor Class IBD/TIPP poll and which we tracked during this entire election season), although Gore made some gains among this group in the last days of the campaign.
Of 1,891 adults surveyed nationwide by telephone from November 4 to 6, 1,292 were classified as “likely voters.” The sampling error for the responses is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
The final results of the IBD/TIPP MetaPoll show Bush edging out Gore by 1 percentage point, 47% to 46%.
The TIPP stuff was very interesting. And I’m telling ya, the same thing is going to happen this year. Like Gore in 2000, McCain is a bit soft with voters who voted Bush four years ago (especially Independent but right-leaning voters, mostly white older voters), while Obama is already maxed out with his demographic groups.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010203001500/tipponline.com/elect/other/trends.htm