The assumption is that four days out from a Presidential election, the national polls would show continued tightening in the race between the two major party candidates. And, while these polls are only broad indicators of the candidates' chances (since it's the Electoral College that ultimately matters), it's interesting to see today that Gallups three models -- registered voters, traditional likely voters and expanded likely voters -- all showed increases for Obama in Friday's three-day rolling poll. One-third of the poll was conducted after the Obama infomercial and joint rally with Bill Clinton on Thursday.

In the poll, the Traditional Likely Voter model (based on 2004 turnout demographics) had Obama at 51 to McCain's 43. The expanded Likely Voter model (which attempts to assume more voters from younger and minority demographics), showed Obama and 52 and McCain at 43.

National tracking polls have tended to tighten over weekends, so this may be the widest margin we'll see. Still, it's curious that the expected tightening is not happening as we go into the weekend prior to the election.

Previous Comments

ID

140066

Comment

Whaaat? What about Joe the Plummer's impact? I was worried he'd pull it out! But frankly I'm more worried about Frank "the never in my lifetime racist" showing up at the polls in great numbers and keeping with that ole time feeling. How about Joe the Plummer and Sarah the Sex Shooter doing a concert instead of spewing all the sophistry wherein neither seems to know what the hell they're talking about, yet fairly decent crowds keep showing up, clapping and bragging about how much they remind them of themselves. That "reminding" part is the thing that still has me concerned until the end. Since Sarah and Joe are like them doesn't that mean they hate or dislike Obama and Biden, and will vote for McCain, Sarah and Joe no matter what, come hell or high water, do or die, cold or warm? Similarly, I guess if Joe reminds some people so much of themselves then why are those people so worried about taxes and redistribution since Joe doesn't pay taxes to be redistributed on his wanna be plumber gig anyway. As to Sarah I can see how those wall mart clothes with those too high belts can bring back memeories of when your town got its first wall marts. I can see that. It was a big thang. I remember when we got ours in Ridgeland. Anyway, I hope the polls either stay the same or get wider for Obama. The country needs change quick, fast and in a hurry. With change maybe we can go back and recoup some of the billions of dollars corporations embezzled, inveigled and misappropriated from our governemnt with no bidding process or accountability or at least relaxed accountability in the name of Bechtel, Haliburton, Brown and Root and others to rebuild Iraq but never did or poorly performed. And with change maybe the next country we walk into the bar and slap will be somebody who really did something to us and likewise be somebody we can whip rather easily. Or did we invade and occupy Iraq for the purpose of expanding unfettered and free market disater capitalism so that multinational cororations including American corporations could have a feeding fest or frenzy. I don't know, I'm just a poor Democrat seeking understanding and a better way.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-31T13:48:29-06:00