Well, it does look like there's some slight tightening in the polls lately. The RCP average has dropped from about +7.5 for Obama down to just below +6. The R2k, Ras and Gallup polls all show tightening. But so far, it mostly seems to be McCain's numbers moving up slightly, rather than Obama's numbers really going down. 538 still has Obama at about 96% to win, with well over 300 electoral votes. The polls in crucial states really aren't showing this tightening effect. But it's understandable, in light of the past two presidential elections, that folks would be worried about any trend towards a tightening race as we get so close to election day. I have a few thoughts on this, after the jump, but feel free to vent in either direction in this thread.
Okay, here are my basic thoughts on this:
- The "Obama's a socialist who wants to spread your tax money around" meme may have worked somewhat, in terms of solidifying McCain's base and temporarily freezing Obama's upward momentum with swing voters. This is not exactly impossible to overcome, and I think Obama's tv spot tonight will go a long way towards doing that.
- I expect the polling trends to halt McCain's slight momentum and shift back towards Obama, and for this to show up in Friday's polls. Obama has his big tv spot tonight, which I expect to be pretty effective, and the reaction to that will be reflected in the polling done on Thursday.
- The Obama ground game is about to shift into "endgame mode", where they leverage their numbers to maximize turnout and persuade as many last-minute voters as possible. This will have a major impact on margins in close states.
- Early voting has generally, if not universally, favored Obama, by margins better than Kerry got in 2004. This puts McCain behind the 8 ball, in terms of having to reverse that trend with the diminished pool of voters on election day.
- There's an enthusiasm gap between Obama supporters and McCain supporters, which should rightly be reflected in turnout on election day.
- There's still room for a single "October surprise" in the remaining 6 days, but there's probably not room for two. And any such event will only sway the election if the margin is about half what it is now. As I said, I expect the margin to narrow up until Friday, when it will begin to widen again.
- So long as the poll tightening halts by the weekend, Obama should pull this thing out.
- Get out and vote, volunteer, phone bank, donate, whatever you can do. Even with all the above said, take nothing for granted.
Let's go get that landslide, folks.