Current state of the national tracking polls...

• Gallup: Obama 49%, McCain 42%, with a ±2% margin of error, compared to a 48%-43% Obama lead yesterday.

• Rasmussen: Obama 51%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.

• Hotline/Diageo: Obama 48%, McCain 42%, with a ±3.2% margin of error, compared to a 47%-42% Obama lead yesterday.

• Research 2000: Obama 51%, McCain 40%, with a ±3% margin of error, the same as yesterday.

Adding these polls together and weighting them by sample sizes, Obama is ahead 49.9%-42.5%, even wider than his lead yesterday of 49.4%-42.9%.

Bear in mind that these three-day surveys were conducted before last night's vice-presidential debate. So they don't tell us what effect that the debate had on the race.

...Kerry and Gore were ahead by similar margins before their elections too.  And they didn't even have the mixed race thing going for them.

I did a little research.  

From CNN.com comparing CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls taken as the election approached:

                          Bush           Gore
Oct. 25                52%             43%
Oct. 10                56%             40%
Sept. 26              55%             37%

I'm sure there were other polls more favorable to Gore but he was NEVER up 5-10 points like Obama is at this time.

As far as Kerry goes, again according the CNN archive, based on the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll:

                          Bush            Kerry
Oct. 27               49%               47%
Oct. 1                  49%              49%
Sept. 13              54%              40%

If anything Bush had moments where his lead was bigger.  Again, I'll bet there are polls that were more favorable to Kerry, but they were never ahead like Obama is now.






-- Modified on 10/3/2008 4:30:11 PM

I think there are others polls that show a similar Dem lead, but I don't doubt that particular poll for that time period.  Polls are a lot like statistics - that's my main point.  If I wanted to but the effort into it, I could probably find anything in polling data in general.

Bottom line, I agree he is doing really well.  I'm not convinced he will win though.

Tell you the truth Holey, I don't think Obama is up by as much as the polls show.  I don't think the polls are good for putting a number on a candidate's support but they are good for showing shifts in public opinion.  Right now it's hard to argue that public opinion has shifted behind Obama.

However,  I agree again - Obama may not win.  There's plenty of time between now and the election and any number of things could shift things back in McCain's favor.

Not that there's anything wrong with that