( - promoted by Daniel De Groot)
National polling is all over the map right now, with one poll showing Obama up 14%, another only 3%, and with other polls showing virtually every other number in between. So, how far ahead is Obama, really?
Twelve polling organizations have come out with likely voter polls in the last forty-eight hours. In an attempt to answer the titular question of this post, I took the most recent poll from all twelve, and averaged them together:
Likely Voter National Polls, 10/11-10/13
| Org |
Obama |
McCain |
| ABC |
53% |
43% |
| ARG |
50% |
45% |
| Battle |
53% |
40% |
| CBS |
53% |
39% |
| DCorps |
50% |
42% |
| Dkos |
52% |
41% |
| Gallup* |
52% |
44% |
| Hotline |
48% |
42% |
| IBD |
45% |
42% |
| LA Times |
50% |
41% |
| Rasmussen |
50% |
45% |
| Zogby |
48% |
44% |
| Mean |
50.3% |
42.2% |
| Median |
50% |
42% |
* = Only looked at the Gallup tracking poll, not the USA / Today Gallup. Also, averaged the two likely voter models. I figured, only one poll per organization.
The mean and the median matchup pretty nicely, both coming in at an 8% Obama lead. It also comes close to matching the Pollster.com trend (8.5%), and the Real Clear Politics trend (8.1%). It is a bit higher than the 538 trend, which shows Obama up only 6.4%.
In short, 8% seems like a very good guess for Obama's lead right now. 538's trend also seems reasonable--and certainly feels accurate to me, since I am a bit of a landslide doubter. However, there is also good reason to think it is a bit on the low side.
So, there you have it--Obama is probably up by 8%, but maybe only 6-7%. This has been another edition of reasonably simple answers to reasonably difficult questions.
Update: It appears that 538 also has Obama up 8% nationally, but the 6.4% is their current projection for the final outcome.
Update 2: Since I wrote this post, a new poll showing Obama up 51%-42% was released.
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