Talk Elections

http://tinyurl.com/45g862

Pennsylvania: Obama 50, McCain 42
Virginia: Obama 50, McCain 47
Colorado: Obama 48, McCCain 47
Florida: Obama 47, McCain 47
Ohio: Mccain 48, Obama 47

Virginia more democratic than Colorado? Perhaps some Coloradans who were previously voting Obama trust a republican to fix the economic mess more than a democrat? Pennsylvania is good to see though.

Point of reference: these polls were conducted Sun., 9/28.

Well, they were published today, but I suppose I will put 9/28 in the title.

MSNBC just moved PA into the toss up category.

Yeah, pretty stupid on their part.

Who cares about the networks' maps? Aren't these the idiots who have New Mexico leaning McCain?

I was just thinking it might be important to note that these polls preceded today's disaster.

Looks about right (at least before today), but I want to look through the crosstabs to see if one of these polls is the one in twenty before saying too much.

The FOX News thingy is still funny.

Why would Obama's leads in CO and VA get smaller while his national lead got larger though (according to Rasmussen)?

Because Rasmussen is not always right and people need to stop acting like their polls are the be-all-end-all.

statistical noise, my brother

Not to mention BRTD they only moved Minnesota into the lean Obama column upon the conclusion of the Republican National Convention earlier this month. I think they also did that with Iowa for some bizarre reason. And which network was it do you ask? CNN!!!

Yeah, probably

PA is clearly not a toss-up and should probably stop being polled along with these other states - which are actual swing states.

The PA sample is a tad odd, but probably not a complete outlier.  The other samples look pretty good, actually.

Obama isn't going to win Ohio, is he?

wow these numbers are actually pretty good for McCain cosnidering the kind of week hes having.  Ras has always had McCain up big in OH, but CO is not going the way of their other polls.   

OH is wide open, the numbers dont seem to be changing much, pollsters jsut keep disagreeing.  RAS always has it a "strong" lean while a lot of the others have it barely Obama.  OH is a crap-shoot this year.

No.

These were all +3-5 improvements for Obama.

Compared to FiveThirtyEight's snapshots, for Obama:

PA: +3
VA: -2
CO: -5
FL: -1
OH: -2

Average: -1.4

I was actually encouraged that McCain was able to be down 1 in Colorado and be within 3 in VA as my memory tells me he was down 5 in the last poll by ras there. 

Some days you just have to look for the positive.

Typically, you're going to see less swing in the highly contested states just because they are so highly contested.

Still, while examining the other state polling, it seems fairly clear that Obama was ahead by 3 prior to the last debate. 

It'll take us at least another few days to feel out where things post-debate/bailout failure.

Eh, I'm still a little iffy about one-day polls on Sundays.

Yup :) everybody lays an egg now and then - just the way it is :)

Never, ever forget.. One poll is, well, one poll :)

Rasmussen has shown he can get it right, that does not mean he has gotten it right again.

Rasmussen has proven himself to be a good pollster and belongs in the data set, along with the other top tier pollsters.

What I do is look at the list of polls for a state, throw out the obvious idiots based upon their historical outcomes, and average the rest. - Works almost all of the time :)