In only a couple of polls, with drastic manipulations involving oversampling of Democrats, has Obama crossed that line.
Gallup shows him at 51-52%, but we do not know what the sampling (D-R) is, or do we?
Also, how do you explain the state polls that show McCain behind in almost all the states he has to win? Thanks.
Second, when public polls were showing McCain down in OH, our internals had him up, and up almost outside the MOE. I hear similar things about all the other "battleground" states except VA. I've not been able to get intel on VA. I hear we are up in CO, up in NV, up good in MO, up beyond good in FL, up in NC and GA. I hear we are very close in NH, IA, and PA.
Right - what about this Gallup polls showing a blowout for “The One”?
Gallup shows him at 51-52%, but we do not know what the sampling (D-R) is, or do we?”
You don’t. But I do know that (1) last night was Halloween and people with kids is a GOP demographic and (2) Gallup tweaked their likely voter model to increase the assumption of black voter turnout by three points.
Here is a FR-mail that I sent a few days ago to some Freepers (part of a weekly series of e-mails). It will help put these Gallup polls into the proper perspective.
{Beginning of FR-mail]
This report will be slightly different from the previous ones because it really doesn’t reveal anything new and we are now at the point where this information is already obsolete anyway — the undecideds are now deciding and they started deciding after Oct. 26.
These numbers cover the period from Oct. 20 to 26 and show Obama up 51-42 among registered voters (unchanged from last week).
For this one, I chose to focus solely on reverse-engineering the party ID split for Gallup’s reported 51-42 lead. I will also spare you how I got there and just give you the bottom line
Dems 41.3 (4.3 oversample from 2004)
GOP 32.2 (4.8 undersample from 2004)
Ind 26.5 (0.5 oversample from 2004)
At the 2004 distribution, the adjusted totals for this registered voter poll are as follows:
Obama 47.18
McCain 46.18
According to Gallup, Obama has a 42-41 lead among Indepedents (including leaners — this represents a six point drop for Obama and a one point gain for McCain from the previous week), Obama leads Dems (88-9), and McCain leads GOPers (87-10). These [party support] numbers are essentially unchanged from last week.
By way of comparision, in 2004 the Dems voted 89-11 for Kerry, while the Republicans voted 93-6 for Bush. The Independents went 49-48 for Kerry.
I would expect that when you limit each of these subgroups to likely voters — again, these splits are from registered voter pools, not likely voter pools — I would guess that the splits become slightly more favorable for McCain in all three groups (likely voters are more right-leaning as a whole than registered voters). I have no idea by how much, except to point to the 2004 numbers as a reasonable frame of reference.
I will make the same comment here that I made about the TIPP poll: unless Obama gets to AT LEAST 48 in a representative likely voter sample, he’s dead. McCain will get to 48 and he will have an easier time going from 48 to 50+ than Obama if both are polling at 48.