In polls this late the +/- gap is secondary. Raw percentages are more significant.

[troublemaker]

I am surprised that we haven't heard more this season of what used to be accepted wisdom. Incumbents under 50% are in danger. Traditionally, a very late pre-election poll showing an incumbent leading 46-44 is not great news for the incumbent because undecideds tend to break about two to one for challengers. (People that vote for incumbents usually know who they're voting for the weekend before an election)

In this season I've seen a lot of poll analysis comparing a poll with 8% undecided to a poll with 16% undecided without noting the difference. One poll has incumbent Smith ahead of challenger Jones 42-38 and another has Smith ahead of Jones 48-44 and they are treated as identical, showing Smith up by 4. In actuality, in the day or three before election day the first poll would suggest a Jones win and the second suggests a Smith win.

For the last week I've been ignoring polls showing incumbents in the mid 40s% because they are surprisingly ineffectual in predicting outcomes. The undecideds lean toward the challenger but are less likely to vote... there's just not enough meaningful information.

My personal read is that the Republicans have blunted the wave a little with extraordinary cash outlays to their "firewall" Senate seats and thus the Senate is a coin-flip. But those money dumps have required abandoning enough Republican house members to create a reverse firewall in the House.

[ChiciB1]

1. Even though We Can't Help It... I Sm One Myself... I'm Going To

HAVE to stay away from the BOOB TUBE!! All I'm hearing is how Repukes are closing the gap in Senate races!

But let me say what I've been saying on other threads, the good thing will be that it will KEEP Dems ALERT & FIGHTING!!

GOTV! I'm headed out to see Jim Davis & Bob Graham a little later today here in Sarasota County! We don't usually get Dems coming here. It will make be more upbeat!!

I don't UNDERSTAND the polls here in Florida though!! But then IT IS Flor-EE-DUUHHH!! Jebby and his Nasty Crew knows no bounds and stoops to the lowest levels!!!

[ChiciB1]

2. See, I Can't Even Hit Key Stokes Correctly!! Must Make A Correction....

Should be... I'm One Myself! Also, It will make me be more upbeat!! And yes, there is another grammatical error, Jebby and his Nasty Crew KNOW no bounds!

My obsessive compulsive nature made me correct this.

[asjr]

3. We "lost " 2000, 2002 and 2004. We know why

we lost and it has nothing to do with most of the country liking Republicans more. Rove and Bush, etc. have been very sure they would win both houses this time. These latest polls showing a tightening of races is just their way of preparing us for a Republican win. The fix is in! There are too many electronic voting machines to be rigged. If Democrats win this time I will be very surprised. Happily surprised, but surprised anyway. I despise feeling this way; I wish I could feel otherwise. With all the Republican scandals looming over us all and polls showing the country very dissatisfied it should be a "slam dunk" for Democrats. The media are not dumb, although they act like it. They know what is happening and are too chicken to tell everyone. I call it the Trashing of America. I have been around for a long long time and thought I had seen everything. But I had not ever imagined our country being stolen from us.

[longship]

4. Good post. Some of my thoughts on this.

I disagree with you on the absolute accuracy in these late polls. The pollsters are using historical models and party distributions to scale their data. But this year especially those models are likely to be incorrect. We see this in the flipping back and forth of the polls for a particular race. Allen's ahead; Webb is ahead; Allen is ahead again; They're tied now; etc. But the undecideds remain at about the same percentage. It's inconceivable to me that a high number of people are that fickle, changing their minds back and forth on a daily basis. Yet that's exactly what all these polls are indicating. It cannot be correct. The only conclusion is that the measurement of public opinion is an inaccurate science. We all know that already, but when it comes to the news media reporting it, such things are never spoken.

So, what do these polls tell us? Do they have any value at all? You bet!

Take the accumulated polls as a set and draw conclusions from them, but only where there are consistent trends and measurements. I don't see a lot of this in these contested Senate races. That's why I am tending to draw my conclusions on these races from other data. This is a far more inexact methodology but in absense of concrete, repeatable polls that's what one is left with.

I think the following conclusions can be drawn from what we're seeing:

1. Every single one of the large scale indicators are so biased towards the Democrats that one must color ones predictions in that direction. The accumulated data comes from the large issue polls, which *do* seem to have some stability in both numbers and trends, so they can be used. Even though individual race polls may not be accurate, the number of competitive races indicated by those polls is important--almost all of which are Republican-held seats. The number of these competitive races has been increasing throughout the election season, another important trend--again, always in favor of Democrats. Finally, although not always scientifically measurable, there is a huge accumulation of anecdotal evidence. All these large scale indicators are very important this year. They point towards something very important happening.

2. The candidate polls are counting "likely voters". But this is an measurement whose outcome is extremely sensitive--a small inaccuracy is likely to have a disproportional effect on the outcome, especially if Republicans are overstated and Democrats and independents are understated. In a year like this year where a disproportional number may be voting for Democratic candidates, the swing of miscounting this could be significant.

3. There seem to be many undecideds this year. We're a couple of days from the election and too many polls are still in the low-to-mid forties. I haven't checked, but I suspect that there are more than usual. I'm no expert on this but I'll bet that they will significantly break for the Democrats, just as the Independents will this year. Just maybe there are many people who don't want to tell pollsters how they will be voting.

When I look at all this stuff I *must* discount the individual candidate polls and even the accumulated polls in a specific race where there is no consensus. No races are worse in this than the three of four critical Senate races. That's why I'm not trusting them.

In short, I think Webb is ahead in VA, McCaskill is ahead in MO, and Tester is ahead in MT. I do not know at all what is going on in TN, but Dems could be ahead there too and the polls might not see it. Everything is skewed in the Dem's direction this year. That's not happened in a long, long time. The pollster's models are going to be inaccurate. "Likely voter" is not likely to be accurate, either. IMHO.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. I Saw Something Very Disturbing...

Gary C Jacobson, a professor of political science at Yale University said it's conceivable because of gerrymandering that the Democrats can win 53% of the popular vote and still not win control of the House.

[applegrove]

6. Thanks for the good news. n/t