Zogby sez: "Nevermind."

[triggercut]

Today:

Obama 49.5 (+.4), McCain 43.8 (-.3)

Pollster John Zogby: "Obama has consolidated his lead over McCain. His single day lead today was back to 52%-42%.

Oh, and Zogby gets a little bit pissy with Nate and the 538 crew, too:

A special note to blogger friends: calm it down. Lay off the cable television noise and look at your baseball cards in your spare time. It is better for your (and everyone else's) health."

It would be funny, except Zogby fucking sucks at polling. He asks the rhetorical question: "Why were McCain's numbers so good last night?" He concludes that Friday was a day of "consolidation" for McCain amongst his base.

Nate at 538 has a better, more informative answer: Fridays are tough enough to poll as it is. Holidays are tough to poll on. Halloween on a Friday was going to provide goofy numbers especially if your sample size was too small (Zog's is 400, compared to triple to quadruple that in Gallup and Rasmussen), and if your methodology (using 2004 party ID demographics to artificially "weight" your numbers) is suspect.

[strummer]

Yeah, I am sure that having Nate scrutinize the methodology of some of the pollsters is not sitting well with them. Especially since they likely have never had to justify their results to the extent they may have to now, given the relative popularity of 538.com.

It's always amusing to hear the "get your nose out of a spreadsheet" or "computers can't tell you what is really going on" laments by those in opposition to more thorough analysis.

[triggercut]

Thing is, Nate's heard that before. He, and guys like him, have been raked over the coals by old school baseball folks for half a decade now. When Silver introduced PECOTA (yeah, it is named, sort of, for utility bench-player Bill Pecota...) ratings he got torched. When PECOTA proved to be one of the most accurate predictors of performance, he got rich.

If he's close on the general election, I think we'll see more transparency and common sense in polling going forward.

BTW, I'll confess that I nearly choked when I saw a 1-day sample from Zog at 48-47. I didn't even consider that it was a sample collected of only 400 voters, taken from 4:00-9:00 on a Halloween that fell on a Friday. Had I calmed down and realized that, I'd have had a good laugh when they got Drudge sirened.

[Jazar]

270towin has an Obama victory even if he loses every major battleground state.

[Robert Sharp]

I'm telling you, Obama will top 300 easily.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

I'm telling you, Obama will top 300 easily.

I've been saying this since May, to the utter disbelief of my very liberal friends, all of whom were convinced for months that the Democrats would blow it or it would be close enough for the GOP to "steal" it. I never thought the Electoral College would be all that close, judging from the high Dem primary turnouts and Dean's Fifty State Strategy forcing the GOP to play defense.

Troy

[triggercut]

He'll win, but won't get 300. Virginia seems poised to flip back to McCain.

[Lorini]

He'll win, but won't get 300. Virginia seems poised to flip back to McCain.

Pollster shows Va as strongly Obama and fivethirtyeight is also showing Va as strongly Obama. Where are you seeing that Va will flip back? Among poll amalgamation sites that is.

[jpinard]

I've been saying this since May, to the utter disbelief of my very liberal friends, all of whom were convinced for months that the Democrats would blow it or it would be close enough for the GOP to "steal" it. I never thought the Electoral College would be all that close, judging from the high Dem primary turnouts and Dean's Fifty State Strategy forcing the GOP to play defense.

Troy

Why don't I have as much faith as you? My fear is when people get into the polling booth and see the scary name, many undecided with their flip-floppy hearts will click the McCain side. I also see the Republicans trying every (and any) dirty trick in the book to try and get votes or eliminate Obama votes... they already have a team of lawers at work.

[Troy S Goodfellow]

they already have a team of lawers at work.

So do the Dems. Lawyers are standard operating procedure now.

Troy

[Ben Sones]

Pollster shows Va as strongly Obama and fivethirtyeight is also showing Va as strongly Obama. Where are you seeing that Va will flip back? Among poll amalgamation sites that is.

Yeah, Obama is about seven points ahead in that race, and is polling at over 50%. In order to flip that state, McCain is going to need to win 100% of the undecided voters, and flip some of the Obama voters. In two days. I think that's pretty unlikely. Obama taking Arizona is a more believable scenario than that, and I seriously doubt that's going to happen, either.

[chumpface]

I remember Zogby on the daily show a couple of days before 2004 election where he said he was certain kerry would win.