Pollster.com

Nader is not doing too well...

Meh, it's the Kos after all, but just reinforces the trend.

ARGH all these polls out and none in the poll update section. I need to get my poll discussion fix!

So Kos has seemed like an outlier all year with some type of liberal bias.

But the other polls (Gallup, Ras, Diageo Hotline) have all changed in the past week to match them (while they haven't shown as much of that swing).

Thoughts on why this might be?

Today national polls :

Rasmussen :

Obama 51%
McCain 45%

Gallup :

Obama 49%
McCain 43%

Diageo :

Obama 47%
McCain 41%

New Florida poll from PPP :

Obama 49%
McCain 46%

Is Florida going to turn blue ??

@NorseSoccer

Every poll does its own demographic weightings, so my suspicion is that the shifts are occuring in demographic subgroups that DKos/R2K undersamples compared to the other trackers (or equivalently, demographic subgroups that the other trackers oversample compared to DKos/R2K).

For example, if DKos/R2K's weighting has a higher Democrat-to-Independent ratio than, say, Rasmussen, and Independents swing towards Obama without much movement among Democrats, Rasmussen will see a larger swing towrds Obama than DKos/R2K and Rasmussen will begin to "come into line" with DKos/R2K as some of Rasmussen's Independents begin to vote like Democrats.

burrito, if Obama leads nationally by about 6 points, then he leads in Florida by narrow margin. This stuff isn't that complicated. Florida is maybe 1 or 2 points right leaning compared to the nation as a whole. It might be slightly more than that this year with Obama a bit weaker in Florida than another Democrat would have been.

The nonsense was during the spring when some progressive sites tried to insist Florida was out of play regardless of the nominee. That was pathetic cynicism and over reliance on early state polls. The state has classic swing state percentages of self-identified liberals and conservatives.

Plenty of these states will be close even in you ignore them, like Gore and Ohio in 2000, and plenty will shun you even if you camp out all year.

The question is: Will Obama maintain this national margin? I doubt it. I may be stubborn about it but I rely on a power rating-type expectation, and this year that means a 2-3 point Democratic edge in an open race in this climate. I'm not impressed with a McCain surge like two weeks ago, when he was never legitimately the favorite, and I'm not overly comfy at this point. You never want to project based on the extremes. That's why the sportsbooks love NFL football, the goofs who wager expecting the most bizarre outcomes of last week to repeat.

Adjusted for 2004 exit poll, this poll's results would be as follows:
Based on region alone: Obama +12
Based on age alone: Obama +8
Based on gender alone: Obama +11
Based on race alone: Obama +8