Gallup Daily: Obama Continues to Outpace McCain - Holds 8-point lead among traditional likely voters

[RedSpartan]

Source: Gallup

PRINCETON, NJ -- Voters' presidential preferences remain favorable to a Barack Obama win on Tuesday, with 51% of traditional likely voters supporting the Democratic nominee for president, and 43% backing John McCain. An additional 1% say they support some other candidate, leaving 5% undecided.


Read more: http://www.gallup.com/poll/111664/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Co...

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Gallup's "traditional" likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections.



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Gallup's "expanded" likely voter model determines likely voters based only on current voting intentions. This estimate would take into account higher turnout among groups of voters traditionally less likely to vote, such as young adults and minorities.



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Gallup Daily election tracking reports the percentage of registered voters who say they would support each candidate if the presidential election were held today.



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[Dogmudgeon]

1. Before anybody starts screaming ...

McCain ALWAYS polls better during the weekends.

He is likely to be two or possibly even three points lower by Tuesday.

--p!

[aquart]

5. Why is that?

[Virginia Dare]

6. People get drunk and screw with the pollsters?...n/t

[Virginia Dare]

2. I just checked out the RCP EV map...

McCain's got 185 without the toss-ups, so he'll have to win all of his solids, his leanings and steal some from Obama in order to win. In other words, he'll have to pull off a miracle. The state poll numbers really haven't moved much in the past few days, so I predict this will be close to the final outcome.

[AndyTiedye]

4. McAnus Would Need to Pull off an Epic Steal

He doesn't need a miracle, but he does need to steal a lot of votes and prevent a lot of people from voting.

[tclambert]

8. I'm still predicting around a 200 electoral vote blowout

That would be Obama 369, McCain 169. And I keep saying 50% is nice, but 270 is the number that wins. Obama has been playing the electoral college game extremely well. McCain just recently figured out the EV numbers look so bad for him that he has to hope for Pennsylvania. And it's too far out of reach. His attempt at PA will just cost him Ohio, and probably Florida.

The real fun, though, is that Arizona is close enough to call a toss-up. McCain's home state! And if you look at RCP's map, all the toss-up states are states that went red in 2004 by at least 5%, except Ohio. And Ohio is borderline "leaning Obama."

Make sure you load up on popcorn for Tuesday night.

[Virginia Dare]

9. They're saying this morning if Indiana and Virginia go Obama..

the race will be over by 7:30.

[grantcart]

3. In reality McCain has had a 43-43 ceiling for months

(Surprisingly similar to the way that the primaries ended.

[tclambert]

7. I'm beginning to believe we can all chill the fuck out, because he's got this.

[NightHawk63]

10. I know I feel calmer at that thought! nt