SurveyUSA / Civitas Poll of NC: Romney 53% Obama 43% with REGISTERED VOTERS

[Craigo]

Remember, on average 1 in 20 polls will be garbage.. and 1 in 100 will be complete lunacy, and that's if the firm conducting the polling is good. 95% confidence intervals and all that.

These internals are simply, clearly, dramatically wrong, so the macro results are pretty easy to throw away as a swing and a miss.

Babe Ruth struck out plenty, and SurveyUSA can lay an egg and still be a good firm.

This. Random error can be a bitch sometimes.

[Craigo]

This poll is actually trash.

I'm gonna second that guy's point above - any one bad result does not mean that the pollster is trash. Every once in a while, good polling technique will produce an awful result.

(I know you didn't say the pollster was trash - this just seemed like a good segue.)