England for Obama

According to Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight, that is. And he does sort of know what he’s talking about. Nate also warns against trusting the exit polls:

John McCain kept telling us that he hasn’t been voted Miss Congeniality - but Barack Obama certainly has been. The final pre-election poll by Gallup shows that:

Obama’s favorable rating is 62% - the highest that any presidential candidate has registered in Gallup’s final pre-election polls going back to 1992.

Gallup’s new poll also puts Obama at 53% and McCain at 42% among likely voters.

…on television; while the YouTube video currently has 1,416,160 views. No: 1,416,161. No: 1,416,162.

But did it work? Well, Gallup polled people after the 30-minute advert aired - read their findings below. In short: Obama’s gone up, McCain’s gone down, but not by huge percentage points. So it may not have made a big difference - but in the words of Daily Kos: “It baked the cake”.

“The political landscape could be improving for Barack Obama in the waning days of the campaign. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 28-30 shows him with an eight percentage point lead over John McCain among traditional likely voters — 51% to 43% — his largest margin to date using this historical Gallup Poll voter model.

Since Tuesday, McCain’s support among traditional likely voters has dropped by four points (from 47% to 43%), Obama’s has risen by two points (from 49% to 51%), and the percentage of undecided voters has increased from 4% to 6%.

Thursday night’s interviews are the first conducted entirely after Obama’s widely viewed 30-minute prime-time campaign ad, which ran on several television networks Wednesday evening. Obama held a substantial lead over McCain in last night’s polling, however no greater than what Gallup found on Wednesday.

Obama’s current 11-point lead over McCain among all registered voters — 52% to 41% — is up from an eight-point lead in yesterday’s report, and ties his highest advantage on this basis, last recorded 10 days ago.”

Here were the findings from Rasmussen:

Ad Make You More/Less Likely to Vote for Obama?

More Likely: 54%
Less Likely 24%
Among McCain Voters: 8% More Likely
Among Conservatives: 39% More Likely
Among Republicans: 21% More Likely
Among Men: 50% More likely
Among Women: 59% More Likely
Among 65+: 57% More Likely
Among Whites: 50% More Likely

Apparently, one in seven voters are still persuadable. Who are these people?!

…Keith Olbermann takes a look at the polls, and the state of the two campaigns right now:

From TPM:

Some brilliant polling figures in - including one showing that three-quarters of first-time voters plan to vote for Obama:

I do love Keith Olbermann, but I do wish he didn’t shout quite so much. Maybe I’m just used to Rachel Maddow these days?

In the words of Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor: good morning, good moooorning!

The latest Newsweek poll sees Barack Obama leading 52 percent to 41 percent among registered voters - and leading, or overtaking, John McCain in just about every demographic:

“Obama now leads McCain among both men (54 percent to 40 percent) and women (50 percent to 41 percent). He now wins every age group of voters - including those over 65 years of age, who back him over McCain 49 to 43 percent. Supporters of Hillary Clinton, as many as a fifth of whom had at one point told pollsters they’d support McCain over Obama, now back the Democratic nominee 88 percent to 7 percent.”

The note of caution, however:

“Still, the poll suggests that despite his lead and the extremely favorable conditions for a Democratic candidate, Obama has not yet established himself as the firm choice of swing voters.”

Now, I know we’re all a bunch of nervous ninnies about this election, and won’t feel safe until we wake up on November 5th to pictures of the victorious new President Obama and Vice President Biden. And even then, we won’t trust it (remember “victorious” Al Gore?). Maybe we won’t quite believe it until, I don’t know, Barack Obama is standing in the Rose Garden for the first time. Or photographed with all the other G8 leaders. Or got his face on a note bill 100 years from now. Maybe then it will sink in.

Anyway, I digress. The point is: our nervousness is all the more reason for us to read Chris Bowers’ piece here, which compares and contrasts the current independent polls with the ones currently coming from the big media outlets.

You may want to pinch yourself… but in a nutshell:

“…[independent] polls now objectively show that Obama is well over 270 electoral votes. However, none of the big, and so-called liberal, media websites show Obama over 270 right now… None of these websites can admit what is patently obvious to even Republican poll watchers right now: Obama is over 270 outside the margin of error.”

And the reason they won’t admit this seeming landslide victory?

“Maybe they are afraid of being accused of pro-Obama bias (probably). Maybe they are just biased toward McCain (possibly). Maybe they just suck at electoral forecasting (definitely). Maybe they are invested in a close campaign (absolutely).”

Well, indeed. It pays the rolling news channels to keep it tight, doesn’t it? I mean, they’ve got to keep our interest somehow. Because, obviously, the prospect of a Democrat victory and the first African-American president of the United States isn’t nearly exciting enough, is it?

(PS - more talk of a landslide here)

From Nate Silver at election poll specialists Fivethirtyeight.com: