how close are the polls?

[Morrisonker]

I was wondering how close the polls are so far for the Presidential election next week (yes, i know they haven't started voting yet) I keep hearing all these opinion polls, and just wanted to know what the latest is saying?

[bernardo]

They are all "too close to call" in all the marginal / swing states... which means that the whole thing is "too close to call".

(in other words, the margin by which one candidate is ahead of the other is so little that it can be accounted for purely by the random variation of selecting the people in the sample)

[Oneeyedvic]

I also beleive they have started postal voting (a few weeks ago?)

[georgit79]

I heard there were only about 4 or 5 points in it.

[crafty]

bush in the leed.
(As of last night)
all hangs on 2 states.

[Dsg]

Try this site for up to date info:- http://www.electoral-vote.com/pred/index.html

[bmcchgo]

The electoral-vote.com site linked earlier is actually the best site for polling results. I also recommend:

http://2.004k.com/

But, it is very important to read the great analysis offered!

I know those of you in the UK are very concerned about the outcome. However, as a smart, confident Kerry supporter, I can say he will win on Tuesday!!

[zgma]

I was going to post the electoral-vote.com site then noticed that someone already has.  That is a great site for seeing what the most recent polls are.

 

One thing to keep in mind about the polls this year, is that they are probably not accurate.  Polls in the same state taken at the same time can have pretty wide variation - outside the margin of error even.  The pollsters are usually working for someone - and you can tell who by where their polls fall in relation to other polls taken at the same time.

 

Also, pollsters only poll what they call "likely voters".  This means that first time voters aren't counted (who presumably will go heavily toward Kerry).  Also people who have cell phones as their only phone are not polled - these are mainly young people who go overwhelmingly to Kerry as well.  And the polls are normalized slightly in favor of the Republicans as well.  The electoral-vote site explains this much better than I can.

 

Anyway, given all that, I am holding out great hope that Kerry wins by a much wider than expected margin tomorrow!