Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[VIKING163]

Polls tightening...again?

What is it with these polls? One week Obama has an 8 point lead, then polls tighten. A week later, Obama opens up another lead...and now polls tighten again.


Putting candidates aside, what's going on with these polls??


<National polls tighten a bit; Obama hangs on to lead in battlegrounds
1 hr 36 mins ago

With less than a week till Election Day, any movement in the polls is big news. In the Real Clear Politics national poll average, Barack Obama's 8-point lead from Saturday has decreased to 5.9, due mostly to a gain in John McCain's average.

Three major polls have seen a significant squeeze in the past five days, causing this trend. Today, a Rasmussen poll put Obama at a 3-point lead. McCain has gained 3 points in their survey since Saturday and Obama has lost two, putting the race at the narrowest margin this poll has seen since late September.

This followed the drastic squeeze seen in the Reuters/Zogby/C-SPAN this weekend. After enjoying a 12-point lead in their poll last week, Obama's lead shrunk to around 5 points and held steady there for a few days.

The latest poll to close was Gallup. Their traditional likely voter turnout model has Obama up by three, after having a 7-point lead at one point last week. (Take note: Gallup has multiple voter models. Which one is right depends on who shows up to vote. The other models have Obama up by 7-points today.)

As we've cautioned in this blog space before, it's best to keep up with the state polls too. Remember, the Electoral College doesn't make decisions based on national mood.

With that in mind, here is graphical snapshot of where the polling lies as shown on the Yahoo! News Political Dashboard. Below, we break out specifics about the 11 battleground states' most recent polling averages and trends. The data for both is supplied by our friends at Real>


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl114