Excuse me but there is a difference between a poll 40 days out and one the weekend before the election. A poll taken now is basically for entertainment value, a way to get a feel for the horserace. The final polls taken prior to the election are predictions. In the final polls, Zogby and others make assumptions about turnout by party and other factors to make their final prediction as valid as they can. In 2000 the race collapsed in the last few days because Bush didnt come clean with the DUI information early on in the campaign by mentioning that he had been arrested for DUI when he was young and irresponsible. When the charges came out the final weekend there was no time for Bush to deflect the charges or voters to process them.
OIC. Whatever.
I pay attention to these numbers. I've seen Zogby regularly pull 10 to 20 point swings in the last few days of an election. He's done more polling since the 2000 election, and much of it has been wildly wrong.