Polling can be misleading (shocking, I know).

There's been lot's of chatter the last few days about a "tightening" of the polls...this should make you feel better (though I will note that national polling is irrelevant and useless for anything other than noting momentum - remember, we elect the President in the states, not as a national referendum).


For McCain, When The Gap Closes, And Doesn't.

20 Oct 2008 11:51 am
Well, sort of, but not really.

The Washington Post's Ben Pershing makes a fundamental point about comparisons, one that the Wall Street Journal apparently neglected as well in its lead headline, entitled "Obama Takes in a Record $150 Million, But McCain Narrows Gap in Some Polls."

The sort of: looking at the polling averages, Obama's lead is now just above five points; it was eight points last week.
Case closed, right? As Pershing writes:

"The average last week included some surveys (like the NYT, WashPost and LAT polls) showing Obama with leads of 9 or more points. Because RCP uses a rolling average, those polls have now dropped out, and as of now the average only includes the major tracking polls, which show a closer race. But Obama's lead has actually grown in those tracking polls from where they were last week

Wait a few more days....until the new national surveys have been released. If McCain has made statistically significant gains in a few of those polls, then it's safe to conclude that he's "closing the gap." (Privately, the McCain campaign believes that McCain can still win the electoral college if he comes within two or three points of Obama in the popular vote.)

But even there, there's a conceptual problem. There are lots of gaps; even the Obama campaign, in its wildest, filthiest dreams, doesn't anticipate winning the popular vote by more than five points. The biggest gaps for McCain are in state polls -- in at least six of them, he needs to close the gap _and_ open up a lead in order to account for the multiplier effect of Obama's. It might not be fair to hold McCain to this standard, but this is the challenge he faces.