Obama Commands Lead in Polls, Electorate Projections Entering Tonight's Debate

                 

"While poll watchers think this poll is an outlier or at best on the far end of the margin of error, it’s still obviously good news for Obama. Even if the poll is on the far end of the margin of error (+- 3) then Obama is still up +6 which would put the poll right in line with the Hotline/FD tracking poll which is also at Obama +6. It is a more favorable result than the current Research 2000 tracking poll (Obama +4), the Gallup tracking poll (Obama +3), and the Rasmussen tracking poll (+2.),"says the report.

But both ABC said, the Gallup & Rasmussen polls appear to be weighted in favor of the Republicans (by party ID) and when considering the margin of error in all of these polls, it’s possible that Obama’s real lead is around 5 to 6% nationally now.

For the Obama camp, it has to be great news--especially after the bicameral, bipartisan, candidates, "Meltdown at the White House" on yesterday

Surely this will make for an energy charged debate/townhall meeting at the University of Mississippi tonight. It is still unclear whether Senator McCain will show up.

Another interesting note: The undecideds. According to 538, an electoral projections website (www.FiveThirtyEight.com), a gross underestimate occurred where it relates to undecideds, an unaccounted for black vote and a misunderstood white vote.
 

The polls did a rather poor job of accounting for the black vote. Not only did essentially every "undecided" African-American voter wind up voting for Obama, but some of those who told pollsters they were going to vote for Hillary also wound up voting for Obama.

According to the Website:

Specifically, Obama over-performed:

1. In states with high African-American populations;
2. In states that share a border with Illinois (no, Kentucky doesn't count);
3. In states with highly educated electorates;
4. To a lesser extent, in the South (as indicated by the number of evangelicals), even after accounting for the above variables.

Meanwhile, he underperformed his polls:

1. In the Appalachian states (as indicated by the number of respondents who identify their ancestry as 'American', a practice concentrated in the Appalachian region);
2. In states with low education levels;
3. And in states with a high number of Catholics.


"It's also clear that there were some patterns in the way that undecided white voters behaved," said Nate Silver of 538. "Number one, a majority of them -- probably somewhere between 60 and 65 percent -- wound up voting for (Hillary) Clinton. This is perhaps not so remarkable, considering that about 60 percent of white voters in the primaries voted for Clinton period. But, this figure was higher in regions like the Appalachians, and among groups like Catholics, and lower in places where you had a lot of WASPy, educated voters. So whether or not you label this a Bradley Effect, I don't know -- but the behavior of undecided voters has been predictable to a certain extent.," he said.

Allocating the Clinton votes from the primaries, splitting them between McCain and Obama. The results show a commanding lead for Obama just weeks away from Election Day. 

The ABC poll, notes additional considerations, where they project advantages to either candidate.

1. The Cell Phone Factor.

Are the polling firms accurately accounting for the fact that so many voters (in particular Barack Obama voters) are cell phone only people? I know my fiancee & I count for two such cell phone only Barack Obama voters and I personally know of many others. It’s clear that the vast majority of cell phone only people will be Obama voters.

Not only are most cell phone only people mostly in the 18 to 35 age group which is very pro-Obama but they tend to be higher educated and more likely to use the internet. These are all very good factors related to voting for Obama.

The question remains: How are the polling firms dealing with this? You may remember this was an issue in 2004 and it apparently didn’t make much of a difference in the end, but I think the amount of cellphone only users has gone up considerably in the last 4 years.

Advantage: Obama

2. The Bradley Effect & The Reverse Bradley Effect

During the primaries Obama outperformed his polls in some states and underperformed in other states. According to 538 that over and under performance was actually quite predictable based on the demographics of the states in question.

Advantage: Mixed. But if the Obama campaign is aware of this and allocates campaign funds appropriately - they could use this to their advantage.

3. Voter Registration/Get Out The Vote Efforts

All indications are that the Democrats have gained a huge amount of registrations across the country since 2004. Simply put there are now a much higher % of registered Democrats than there were in 2004. A lot of that increase is because of the Obama campaign’s huge voter registration effort.

The Obama campaign also has a much larger GOTV “ground game” in place than Kerry did in 2004. The Obama campaign has invested a huge amount of their money on registering voters and on getting people to vote on election day. It’s very difficult (perhaps impossible) for the polls to take this into account.

Will Obama see a 2 or 3% increase in actual results vs. poll results because of it? It seems entirely possible. But it’s also hard to count on that until it’s actually proven on election day.

Advantage: Obama.

4. GOP Vote Suppression

In 2000 & and in 2004 the GOP used many techniques to keep Democrats from voting. The most well known stories are from Florida in 2000 & Ohio in 2004 but the truth is the GOP employs their dirty vote suppression tricks all across the country.

There have already been many reports of vote suppression taking place in 2008. It’s a difficult battle to fight for the Democrats and it’s likely to help McCain by at least 1% on election day.

The good news for the Democrats is that the Obama campaign appears to be fighting back on vote suppression much harder than Kerry or Gore did and because of the history of the last two elections people will be much more aware of the problem on November 4th.

Advantage: McCain.

5. Electronic Voting Machines.

There are many states that use nothing but electronic voting machines with no paper trail at all.

The good news for the Democrats is that they appear to be aware of the possible fraud involved with such machines and they are doing their own exit polling to see if any suspicious results occur. They are saying now that they will challenge any suspicious results.

Advantage: McCain., ABC news reports.