Many of us have noticed that over the last month, McCain has shown to be gaining in many of the polls. There is a good reason for this and it has very little to do with his general popularity. In fact, as I will explain, he should be polling better right now than he will later in the year.
Come fold with me and i'll explain why.
As the current main front page article is explaining, polls are not perfect by any means. Polls are very dependent on who is responding and during the summer, those that support McCain are far more like to be available.
One of Obama's main demographics is 18-24 year olds. During the peak summer months, July and August, most people in the age group are on vaction, partying, and just generally unavailable to the polsters.
Another major demographic for Obama is the college educated. One subgroup of this demographic are teachers and profesors, who are mostly on summer vacation as well. Another sub-group are professionals, who tend to make good money but hold the type of job that gives 2 weeks paid a year. These types of people are very likely to take one if not both of those weeks during the summer.
Obama is also popular with the upper middle class, and though some of these people would fall into the previous groups, those that don't would also generally have jobs that would make them inclined to vacation in the Summer.
Now on the other side of the fence we have McCain supporters. One of his major demographics is the retired. Retaired people don't need to vacation in the Summer. Their children are grown and they have the freedom to vacation when ever they want. So even though some maybe be gone many are still home.
Another group for McCain are the supper rich, another group that has the freedom to vacation at will and like the retired, though some may be away many are not.
The last group for McCain ill cover is the working poor. Though they may have vacation time, with the current economic situation (cost of living and gas prices, they can not afford to travel.
As you can see many Obama supporters are not around right now and many McCain supporters are. I believe McCain should be polling his best for the entire year during July and August. On this note I also expect Obama to have a very substancial bump after Labor Day weekend.
My advice is to ignore all polls till after the Summer.