Republican National Convention (Sept. 1-4)

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by manasecret

Regarding the polls that put Obama/McCain at dead even, do they include factors like how many people are actually planning to go out and vote for Obama vs. how many are planning to go out and vote for McCain? Or is it just a simple poll of who would you vote for? It seems to me the number of people actually planning on voting would make a big difference.

I believe the Rasmussen poll is always a poll of likely voters. In any case, polls of likely voters always seem to skew Republican. Per capita, Republicans just vote more.

I normally don't like polls, but I always like to follow them after the conventions, and the numbers don't look favorable for Obama right now. His bounce seems to have disappeared and gone the other way a little. They're in a statistical dead-heat.

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by Professor S

I believe the Rasmussen poll is always a poll of likely voters. In any case, polls of likely voters always seem to skew Republican. Per capita, Republicans just vote more.

I normally don't like polls, but I always like to follow them after the conventions, and the numbers don't look favorable for Obama right now. His bounce seems to have disappeared and gone the other way a little. They're in a statistical dead-heat.

It's not exactly that way if you look at the electoral map of the following...

http://www.pollster.com

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/...map/index.html

http://www.zogby.com/50state/

According to these, Obama just has to flip a few of the toss-ups and he's got it. Of course, it's early so I don't know how seriously I take these.

By the way, Gallup has it at 48% to 44% for Obama. Closer than it has been. It's definitely close, but I like the look of the electoral map in Obama's favor.