Crunch Time

[Yeahman]

From my experience during the Democratic primaries, 5 days before D-Day is when the polls start to get really accurate. That does not mean that today's poll will accurately predict the winner, but trends will be picked up in the polls and you can get a pretty good idea of how it's going to end up.

So on to the polls...
http://washingtontimes.com/national/...2124-5816r.htm

The latest Zogby poll, taken Oct. 25 to 27, found 47 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they'd vote for Mr. Bush and 49 percent said they'd vote for Mr. Kerry. A survey by Pew Research Center taken Oct. 15 to 19 found that 44 percent of that same age group supported Mr. Bush and 47 percent supported Mr. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...top_world_news

President George W. Bush and John Kerry, the four-term Massachusetts senator, are tied in nine of 10 states that both campaigns consider battlegrounds, daily polls by Reuters/Zogby show.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...top_world_news

The Harris poll, conducted among a national sample of likely voters via the Internet, shows Kerry would get 48 percent of the vote if the election were held now and Bush would get 47 percent. Zogby's nationwide telephone survey shows Bush getting 48 percent to Kerry's 47 percent. The Post poll puts the race at 50 percent for Kerry and 48 percent for Bush.

In the past five days, Kerry's support increased by 2 percentage points while Bush's rose by 1 point in Zogby's daily surveys. In the Post polls, backing for Kerry rose to 50 percent from 46 percent over five days, and Bush's support declined from 50 percent to 48 percent. A Harris poll last week showed Bush with a 2-point lead.

So it's a statistical tie. Kerry is gaining but it's still within the margin of error so that's meaningless.

Intrade last had Bush's odds at 49.5% likely to win which is a huge turn of momentum within the last couple of days. Kerry was trading at 50.3%. The markets, of which Intrade is the largest, have been wrong less than 1.5% of the time.
Zogby was on the Daily Show last night and said that he believes that Kerry is going to win.

Conclusion? It has gotten a lot closer recently! Kerry may be pulling ahead now.

[Arex]

^ Good info, and great news. But I'm not going to get my hopes up, or breath a sigh of relief until the dust settles after election day, and maybe not even until the battleground states certify their results since who knows what kind of voting irregularity is going to occur on Tuesday.

RX

[nonamerasian]

I don't have much faith in those polls.

I wouldn't be shocked if Bush/Cheney win.