Quinnipiac last polls for OH, VA, and FL tomorrow morning (7 AM)

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Predictions:
Ohio: Obama +3
Virginia: Obama +2
Florida: Tied or +/-1 for either candidate

Quinnipiac?

Ohio: Obama +5
Virginia:Obama +3
Florida: Obama +1

All the Democrats on this board in glee, even though the poll is modeled on '08 turnout.

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Define "model"

I dont think you understand how polling works

Yeah, I don't understand polling one iota. You're right. Only folks with D's next to their names understand how polling works on this board, I forgot.

In most of these polls:
1) There is an oversampling of the folks who claimed to have voted early and the numbers by the local secretary of states as to the actual size of the poll. Those voters as a subgroup are not part of a statistically significant sample in the 500-750 sample size polls.
2) There appears to be something amiss when it comes to the so-called "enthusiasm factor." The polling data of early voters does not adequately reflect the partisan breakdown of those who have ACTUALLY voted early. Unless, of course, you assume that Romney is not getting his fair share of Republican vote (something not supported by the data).
3) If you look at the ACTUAL data, Obama's GOTV campaign is lagging behind '08 by a good number. The Republicans have eroded the Obama early vote advantage.
4) There's a divergence of the state polls and the national polls where the swing factor does not match up with the polling data.
5) While pollsters allow voters to self identify party affiliation, they do sauce the polls for turnout based on race, age and gender and other factors. In order to do so, they generally use the two previous exit polls to sauce their data. The 2004 exit poll suggested a Kerry win and was pretty much useless useless. The 2008 exit poll will oversample young voters and other groups that the data shows will not show up in as big percentages on election day.

For example, Ohio is a Cook R+1 state, but you're getting O+3 results in a nationalized election that's somewhere between O+1 and R+5.

So then you have to ask why that is?

You can argue that it's a superior ground campaign by Obama, but by doing so you are going well against history. Does that make sense? Can a state "be bought" with ads to historically break away from where it's been throughout history? Possibly. But excuse me for being skeptical.

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For example, Ohio is a Cook R+1 state, but you're getting O+3 results in a nationalized election that's somewhere between O+1 and R+5.

Because the auto bailout is a unique factor making Ohio closer to a D+1 state this year. Cook PVIs change cycle to cycle.

That's a plausible argument, but Ohio's standard deviation for Democrats in particular has not deviated that much from the national vote share.

A tenable argument can also be made that the bailout's influence could be balanced by the coal effect in the SE part of the state. I'd argue in the alternative that if Obama does outperform the norm in Ohio it's more to to do with ad strategy rather than anything else.

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points 1-4 are gobblygook saying people are lying so not worth addressing beyond how there is a lag with early voting and counting...plus all these complaints came before early voting so on too...

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And boom goes the "model". Unfortunately for you that actually isnt how things work. . Almost all pollsters first gather a pool of adult americans and then they apply census data to that pool to match demographics. They then remove non registered voters and then (and only then) do they apply their LV model.  The exit polls are not a factor.

Wow, wait? You mean pollsters simply pick a pool of adults at random, then call those customers, get a uniform response by race and don't have to do any reweighting. I see. I'm enlightened now.

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wow 'Seriously' you are a bit thick aren't you?

No, actually pollsters call numbers randomly and amass a pool of adult responses.  They then reweight the poll to census data. So if they get 60% women responding they adjust the weight.   Bear in mind that over 90% of respondents do not agree to take the survey. This issue of response rate has become a big problem. There is some evidence that there is some response bias after certain events like conventions where those of a particular political persuasion are more enthused and more likely to agree to be polled. But again the pollster does not map anything out before they begin calling except to make sure their calls are balanced geographically.

The fundamental misunderstanding with the new attack on polling is a belief that pollsters predetermine what the party ID makeup will be. The only pollsters who do that are Rasmussen and the Battleground poll.

I am not talking about party identification. Most pollsters do not touch party ID. However, do adjust adjust polling for race, gender, age, etc. If they use solely census data for that, their methodology is likely flawed.

Turnout does not equal census data as all races, ages and even gender do not vote equally. Women vote more than men. Whites vote more than Hispanics. Old people vote more than young people.

At the end of the day, no matter how many phone calls you make, the data is never perfect.

There has to be some sort of judgment call made and the data has to be raked to mirror some reasonable expectation of what the electorate will be.

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OH: Obama up 5
VA: Obama up 3
FL: tied

I will continue to gloat about how I have this election nailed down until SOMETHING proves me wrong.  

Might have missed VA by 1 or 2.

Ohio is going for Obama... there is little that can stop that now.  I want to see one objective argument for Romney to pull off Ohio at this point.  Almost 40% of them have voted and those who have yet to are not giving Romney what he needs by a longshot.  

Objective argument?

1) I don't believe the early vote is anywhere near 40%, more like 20-25%. (21.6% of the 2008 vote total through 10/26).
2) The heavily-Democrat Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) has fallen behind their 2008 early vote numbers.
3) Absentees are favoring Republicans by 9-percent in 2012 vs. 2008. (Arguably, "Operation Chaos" in 2008 and the fluidity of how you identify as a D/R/I in Ohio can erode this argument.)
4) Republicans have already surpassed their 2008 totals in early voting in Ohio. Democrats were down by about 200,000 as of last week. (See drawbacks in point 3).
5) The candidates are still fiercely contesting the state, telling me that the race is likely within a few points, not five.

I'm not saying Obama's not ahead here. The data points seem to suggest a slight lead. But I don't see it as a five-point lead.

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Objective argument?

1) I don't believe

Someone hasn't quite gotten the meaning of the word "objective" it seems...

Let me restate that then: The early vote is not anywhere near 40% of the 2008 vote result.

It's at 21.8% of the 2008 vote total through 10/26 according to the GMU and the Ohio SoS.

Better? The verbage may be poor,  but the statement is accurate.

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Full results: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/31/us/politics/31poll-results-documents.html?ref=politics

Ohio
Obama 50
Romney 45

Virginia
Obama 49
Romney 47

Florida
Obama 48
Romney 47

Four more years.

In the Senate, Nelson leads Mack 52-39, Brown leads Mandel 51-42, Kaine leads Allen 50-46.

Missed it by THAT much.

Ohio: Obama +5 (nailed)
Virginia:Obama +3 (-1 O)
Florida: Obama +1 (nailed)

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The actual number for Ohio early voting is 17.4%.

GMU has it at 21.8% through Friday as compared to the '08 actual vote.

http://elections.gmu.edu/early_vote_2012.html