Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake have done the Battleground poll for years. It’s one of the most solid of the public polls. Ed is a top Republican pollster and Celinda is a dem. They keep each other honest, and they do dual briefings on their results where they pretty candidly discuss the partisan yinyang and what-ifs. I had a brief acquaintance with Ed in a previous life. He’s a standup guy.
That’s why I think this poll is legit. The race is tied within MOE. (After 2 weeks of media telling us race was over - Nate Silver had it listed at 90% certainty or something stupid last week).
And Romney is up 4 with Indies. Obama won Indies by 8 in 2008 and won overall by 7. He cannot win in 2012 by losing Indies.
If someone can find the video of Ed and Celinda discussing the results, it would be worth viewing. They usually do a good job of discussing the internals, and each does a separate partisan analysis of weaknesses, opportunities, and what “my side” needs to move the results. They do a lot of demystifying.
The breakdown of the respondants was not good.
43D (29 strong) - 41R (23 strong) - 15I - 1O