[justlurking]

What's the deal with all the undecideds? Does anyone remember 12.3% of voters still "not sure", two weeks before election day? I can't find IBDD's results from 2004, so I don't have anything to compare this with.

What do folks think: does the high percentage of undecideds reflect their uneasiness with both candidates? Or are they people unwilling to admit they won't vote for Obama?

[NRG1973]

What's the deal with all the undecideds? Does anyone remember 12.3% of voters still "not sure", two weeks before election day? I can't find IBDD's results from 2004, so I don't have anything to compare this with.

In my humble opinion, the large number of undecideds is the same as the "Bradley effect". Folks don't want to tell pollsters that they won't vote for The Messiah.

[justlurking]

I can't find IBDD's results from 2004, so I don't have anything to compare this with.

I was able to find their detailed data from 2004 after I submitted this posting.

http://www.tipponline.com/samplereport.XLS

On 10/22/2004, the IBDD poll was dead even: Kerry 45%, Bush 45%, and 10% undecided. On 11/2/2008, there were still 9% undecided -- the data was collected 10/30-11/1. So, the 12% undecided at this point is not unprecedented.

In the last 2004 IBDD poll (published the next day), undecideds dropped to 4.4% -- which was subsequently split 2.7% to Kerry, 1.5% to Bush, and 0.2% to Nader. They don't describe how they came up with those allocations.