While I'm excited, the so-called "Bradley effect" is real. It's less with a Democrat, but it's still there. I have been a watcher for years, and I see Black Republicans loose 5 points from polls/projections, and Black Democrats lose less.
This time, as so-called Independents are turning towards Obama, when they get behind the curtain, many will be not able to vote Black.
After all, Independents almost always really votr Republican. Ask an Independent when and who was their last Dem vote.
Most Independents are just weak Republicans.
I'm with Nate Silver in the camp that says the Bradley Effect doesn't exist anymore. Obama outperformed the polls most of the time in the primaries, and the enthusiasm of African-American voters and his GOTV operation should more than make up for any Bradley Effect if it were to still exist. Hopefully after this election we'll never have to hear the term again.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 29, 2008 05:30 PMin the end, fence sitting whites may go with McCain. But I see lots of historical Republicans that may have just had it. They may talk McOld, but once in the booth vote Obama. It may just cancel out. But if the turnout is as big as it looks for the Dems, it won't matter. I think, on vote day, lots of old line GOP just stay home.
Posted by T2 at October 29, 2008 05:44 PMIt's gonna be hard to steal this one.
Posted by Bob In Pacifica at October 29, 2008 05:58 PMSo, I guess some still believe that if you have any blood in you from a black parent, you are black (not that there is anything wrong with being black). Obama is not black or Afro-American. Obama is of a mixed race, white and black. People keep calling him a black man, when in fact he is not.
Posted by Judith at October 29, 2008 06:03 PM"It's gonna be hard to steal this one."
However, they will still try.
Posted by Judith at October 29, 2008 06:04 PMSteal??? So tell me folks...what happens next Wednesday morning if America wakes up with a President elect McCain?
Posted by peter at October 29, 2008 08:27 PMWell its simple pants pissin pete..the same thing that happened in the late 1700's.. A revolution..against corruption..
Posted by headxray at October 29, 2008 09:16 PMRasmussen back up to 51-46 for Obama, which is essentially the Rasmussen average for the past 35 days.
Ironically, it's only R2000, the Daily Kos poll, that still is showing "tightening" at the national level.
Meanwhile, the continued deluge of state polls are good for Obama. The MOE's are high on these, so they tend to have a lot of noise, but the aggregates and trends favor Obama.
Of course, count on the conservatives to cherry pick. Joe Scarborough trumpeted a Mason Dixon poll showing PA up only +4 for Obama. What he didn't mention was that M-D's previous poll was only +2 for Obama (meaning the trend is pro-Obama), that M-D has a Republican lean, and that both of the PA polls are outliers.
All good.
Posted by Anonny at October 30, 2008 06:59 AMAnother fleet of CNN/Time polls is out this morning with all good news. They even have Obama +6 in North Carolina.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at October 30, 2008 09:11 AMJudith - regarding degrees of "blackness", it wasn't so very long ago people used the words "quadroon" and even "octoroon". When I was a kid, the charming phrase in the UK was "a touch of the tarbrush". The Nazis used much the same careful calculations to establish Jewishness. Nice old world, isn't it?
Posted by Colin at October 30, 2008 10:00 AMNot much joy in mud-slinging-ville for the Republicans today, at least in terms of the national polls.
At the national level there are three 2-point shifts to Obama: Zogby, Gallup and Rasmussen. Rasmussen, mentioned above, is back to 51-46 after yesterday's surprise drop to a 3 point lead. Their commentary today is sparse, but suggests that this was probably an anomoly.
Gallup's LV-1 model is back to +5 (50-45) after being +3 yesterday and a surprise +2 the day before. The commentary focuses again on the stability of the polls so it looks like everything is back to normal.
Zogby, of course, is pure random data movement but it doesn't stop Zogby from writing commentary that assumes his poll movements are due to sesmic changes in the electorate's attitude. He really is becoming a self-parody, and I bet Reuters gets a new pollster after this election.
R2000 is rounds from +6 to +5, but internals show it's been stable for 4 days. Hotline did a similar incremental move from +7 to +6, but they've been wild. Others are flat.
State polls, as usual, are mixed. With high margins of error, it's hard to compare each new result with the same pollster's work of the week before because even a 4 or 5 point movement could just be random noise. The aggregates, however, remain steady.
Posted by Anonny at October 30, 2008 10:24 AM