The final 2008 Gallup Poll is out, and it is showing a last minute surge towards Obama and the Democrats.
The numbers:
Obama: 53%
McCain: 42%
However, when Gallup allocates undecided voters (based on what methodology I don't know) Obama's share climbs to 55%, giving him an 11-point spread over McCain's 44%.
These are blowout numbers. By comparison, in 1988 (the last time one of the two major parties posted a decisive win, without a significant third-party candidate in the race) George Bush Sr. won 53.4% to Michael Dukakis's 45.7%.
In other words, if Gallup's final poll is roughly right, John McCain may very well end up underperforming Mike Dukakis.
And how effective have McCain's slimeball attacks on Obama been?
One more historic tidbit from the survey: 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 take on the House and Senate races:
Democratic congressional candidates have a 15 percentage point lead among registered voters, the widest advantage for either party since 1964.
1964, of course, was the year of Lyndon Johnson's landslide win over Barry Goldwater, in which the Democrats picked up two Senate Seats (taking them to a postwar high of 68 seats) and 36 House seats (giving the party a two-thirds majority in that chamber as well).
Gallup's forecasting record in recent presidential elections has only been so-so -- its final poll in 2000 had Bush up by two points over Gore, 48-46, while its last 2004 reading got the order right but lowballed both candidates, putting Bush up 49 to 47 over Kerry.
However, Gallup is still the industry's leading brand -- if only because of the weight it carries with the corporate media. That alone would make these results worth noting. But even if Gallup is off this year by roughly the same margins as in 2000 and 2004, these numbers still spell electoral devastation for the Republicans on Tuesday. States like Georgia, Montana and even Arizona could definitely be in play, and a "filibuster proof" Senate majority (not really, but as a propaganda talking point) could be back in reach.
It might not be a 1964 or 1972 or 1984 style absolute landslide, especially in the electoral college, where the Republicans have built in structural advantages (like the overweights given to small rural states), but -- again, assuming Gallup is even close to right -- there shouldn't be any doubt on Wednesday morning that the country has decisively rejected both the Republican Party and the conservative ideology that has dominated American politics since Ronald Reagan first took office.
Some fun, huh?
Update 11:24 PM ET: Two additional thoughts. One is that I notice Gallup has cranked up the thermostat on its turnout projection, and now predicts 64% of registered voters the voting age population will have voted by the time this marathon is over -- an amazing number(at least in this country).
The upward adjustment in the turnout estimate may or may not be a direct cause of the shift towards Obama in Gallup's last poll, but it's a thought worth keeping in mind. The more voters the Obama campaign can get to the polls, the better the odds of actualy reaching Gallup's 55% projection.
Which brings me to my second thought, which is something Ray Kroc (the McDonald's czar) supposedly once said: If you see that your competitor is drowning, shove a fucking fire hose down his throat.
I guess it's time for the Obama GOTV operation to get out the fire hoses.
Update 11/3 1:20 AM ET: For what it's worth (not much, usually) Zogby's penultimate tracking poll is out, and it shows Obama picking up 1.4 percentage points overnight, taking him to just under 51% to McCain's 43.8% (unchanged).
I mention this only because a 1.4 point move in a single day of a three-day tracking poll is a reasonably large one (although it could still just be random noise). Zogby splits his samples across two days in order to get the results out early. This means most of the interviews for this release were done on Saturday, not Sunday. If Gallup is correct, and a last minute surge is going towards the Democrats, then Zogby's final poll, which will be released early Tuesday morning, may show even bigger gains for Obama.
However, in the counterfactual department, the new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows Obama' lead slipping slightly, to 51-43 from 52-42 two weeks ago. Interviews were conducted Saturday and Sunday. But note that those numbers leave an unusually high number of undecided, which may or may not have been pushed to state which way they lean.