John Kerry Reminds Us Polls Are Just Pretty

Votes are the only thing that matters.

DK: Leave it all on the road. I see that that’s the slogan here, and as a competitive cyclist, I know the feeling. You can’t hold anything back, and you can’t take anything for granted.

The polls look good, but let me tell you, the early exit polls four years ago looked fantastic. But the cliché is true: polls don’t matter. Only votes do. And the large majority of those votes will be cast tomorrow. We have to do everything we possibly can to blow the Republican GOTV effort out of the water.

If we’re up by 4 in the polls in a state, we can win by 7. If we’re tied, we can win by 3. If we all do our best right now, we’ll not only win this election, but win the kind of mandate we need to actually change our country.
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Obama's Sizeable Lead in 10 Battlegrounds

I think you'll all like the latest numbers for 10 battleground states.
Remember that it's the state polls that matter because they're better predictors of the electoral college, which in all states but 2 is a winner take all.
The thing to look for in national polls is the trend.

Obama Leads in Florida

Obama is up in Florida by at least 3 points in three recent polls.

Obama up 7 in Florida Poll Roundup

Expect these numbers to make McCain crazy tonight. I'm wondering if he'll be able to keep his head.
Obama is up by 7 in Florida in the latest Fox poll. He's up by 5 in Wisconsin. Even in Missouri, where McCain has led until recently, Obama is up 3.
Another poll in Nevada gives Obama a good lead:

RGJ: As U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain prepare for their second debate tonight, a new poll shows the Obama-Biden ticket has pulled ahead of the McCain-Palin ticket for the first time in the important battleground state of Nevada.

Of 600 likely voters surveyed statewide in the Reno Gazette-Journal/Channel 2 News poll, Obama led with 50 percent to McCain's 43 percent. Three percent of those surveyed are siding with another candidate and only 4 percent are undecided.

The poll was conducted by Maryland-based Research 2000 from Oct. 3 to Oct. 6. The margin of error is 4 percent. And, as with all polls, this one reflects the state of the race today and is not a prediction of who will win the state in November.

The daily Gallup poll gives Obama a 9 point lead, the highest yet.

Obama up 6 in Diageo/Hotline Poll

I only post on good polls and it looks like finally, the national polls are on the upswing. ABC/WaPo's poll had Obama up 9. The electoral map, however, is all that matters because it reflects state by state polls. It looks pretty good. New Mexico and Michigan recently turned safely blue but Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Indiana, where Obama has a slight edge, need to come around. Of course, if Florida turned blue, then it would be much easier to win. But Florida has many retirees, McCain's vote, and many voters who harbor racial prejudices, Palin's vote.  

RCP: The Early Line: Diageo/Hotline Tracking Poll

Obama/Biden 48%
McCain/Palin 42%
Undec 8%

- Obama/Biden's 6% lead is their largest in the Diageo/Hotline tracking poll yet.

- Obama/Biden are moving ahead among white women. The Dems now hold a 1% edge, 46-45%; in the poll completed one week earlier (on 9/16), McCain/Palin led 53-37%.

Obama Reaches 50% in Daily Gallup

Obama is stretching his lead in the daily Gallup poll. Obama 50%, McCain 44%.

McCain's Convention Bounce Gone

Now the race is dead even.

It's the Electoral Map not the Polls

One of the pieces on display at Manifest Hope art gallery at the Denver Convention. 

The Obama campaign ran a brilliant strategy during the primaries. They knew it was all about amassing as many delegates as possible, in small states as much as big states, because they understood the delegate system.

Hillary's campaign ran a traditional big-state strategy and many of her supporters just didn't understand the delegate math, which is why I think, many of them have the impression that Obama stole the election. Had the best way to win been winning big states, the Obama camp would've mapped out that strategy but that wasn't the key to winning.

Now the Obama camp is all about the electoral map, not the day to day polling. They understand that the voting electorate has changed, and they are putting a high priority on registering voters and turning out their base.

Swamp: David Plouffe, one of the architects of Obama's surprise rise to the top of his party, suggests that he all but ignores the national polls. As Don Frederick, our colleague at Top of the Ticket relays the press briefing that Plouffe held, Obama's manager said:

"We don't pay attention to national polls.''

What they do pay attention to: The 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, a calculation that focuses instead on the 50-state contest, and, in the places where Obama shows the most potential for winning, the work of the campaign to spur a strong turnout of Obama voters.

Right now, the electoral map favors Obama.

Obama Up in Florida and Ohio

Election polls for the most part are silly right now. They're out for fun and to influence. I'm convinced these pollsters have agendas, too.

State polls are somewhat more telling than national polls. 

The polls will begin to reflect what's really happening after the convention but when Obama's ahead in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, three states he's not supposed to win, according to the critics, then I'm going to post it.

The recent Quinniapac poll has Obama up by 2 in those states.

A Rasmussen poll put McCain up by 10 in Ohio about a week ago and a recent Strategic Vision poll had McCain up by 8 a week ago in Florida.

Obama has been polling about 7 points ahead of McCain in Pennsylvania for a while.

In North Dakota Obama Beats McCain

here's a blow to clinton's bogus "big states" matter, small ones don't, especially the ones that would never become blue:
from surveyUSA:

A new poll from SurveyUSA found that if the presidential election were held now, Barack Obama would best John McCain in North Dakota. The sampling of 574 likely voters in the state said 46 percent would go for Obama, 42 percent for McCain. In the same poll, Sen. Hillary Clinton would lose to McCain, 54 percent to 35 percent among North Dakotans.
Of course, a single poll is nothing more than a snapshot in time. It’s not a definitive measure of voter preference unless it’s supplemented by a series of polls and other analyses that identify trends and settled voter sentiment. Nonetheless, even the suggestion that a Democrat – any Democrat – can win the presidential vote in historically red-state North Dakota in 2008 is an eyebrow-raiser.

North Dakota has rarely been blue on the election map. Since statehood, North Dakotans have favored the Democratic presidential candidate only five times: Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and 1916, Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936; Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Some historians argue that those departures from the state’s reliable Republican tilt were due to unique circumstances: Wilson’s pledge (violated) to keep the United States out of World War I; Roosevelt’s New Deal promises to raise the nation out of the Great Depression; Johnson, carrying on the agenda of assassinated John Kennedy and lucky enough to run against deeply unpopular Barry Goldwater.

The North Dakota SurveyUSA poll (done in late February) is broken down by age and gender. Obama easily won the 18-34 group (57 percent to 33 percent for McCain, 9 percent undecided), lost by a little the 35-54 group (41 percent to

47 percent, 12 percent undecided) and won elderly voters (44 percent to McCain’s 42 percent, 14 percent undecided).

By gender, Obama was within the poll’s margin of sampling error with

45 percent of male voters to 44 percent for McCain. Female voters broke

48 percent for Obama, 39 percent

map of who won what (it illustrates on who really is ahead)
obama leads in north carolina polls

Obama Up in Polls

Clinton still leads in pennsylvania but the gap has narrowed.

Obama Delegates Clinton Delegates

Today: Louisiana, Washington, Nebraska, US Virgin Islands
Tomorrow: Maine
primary and caucus schedule
real clear politics polls on where the candidates stand. it's apparent that if the race is between mccain and clinton, then mccain has the edge and if it's between obama and mccain, then obama has the edge. some people just don't like clinton. here is a quote from a bangor newspaper:

As a Republican-leaning independent, I will vote for Barack Obama if he is the Democratic nominee but I will not vote for Hillary Clinton if she is the nominee."

not a good reason to vote for obama, especially because there are so many reasons to vote for him. but if that's what it takes. mccain is too war-minded. it's his thing. i like some of his policies but i think he will continue bush's stance on calling countries "axis of evil" and nurturing terrorists by pushing people into a corner. it's basic psychology. if you call your kid lazy, he's probably going to be lazy.
people in other countries are different than us. they have different views on "freedom." freedom is not having freedom pushed on you. freedom comes about when people choose to be free. it has to be their choice. surely, the US can diplomatically deal with other countries and help them along their way but we can't force anyone to do anything. bush's idea of forced freedom is a lousy one. he keeps saying history will prove otherwise, well he's got to be pretty embarrassed at how many people are actually interested in politics this year because he's going to be gone! i mean, what an idiot. i can't wait to have a president that i respect. i think this "freedom" thing may have just been a guise anyway to shore up oil. how many people know that there is an oil leasing spree going on in the arctic. bush is letting companies buy up territory in the chukchi sea before a new president steps in. oh, the damage that will be done in this last year, i hate to think of it. end of rant.

just the democrats.
delegate tracker.