The Final 2 Days

As expected, the Presidential race is tightening, but National Polls still have Barack Obama ahead of John McCain by an average of 6-7%. No candidate has been behind by 5% or more this close to the election and still won it. In fact, the last 4 times that there was a gap of at least 5% in polling 2 days before the election, the final gap was more than 5%.

Pennsylvania is the only state won by John Kerry that John McCain is spending a lot of time and money in this last week. Even though some polls show tightening in PA, the current gap is still 7%. The final battles are being fought on Republican territory and elections are rarely won when you are defending your own ground.

National polls show about 6% of the electorate is undecided. McCain's camp is banking on them winning a predominant share of that 6%. Traditionally, they split pretty evenly. NBC reports that most of the undecideds are older female independents of lower education and this is the group that supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries. It will be very interesting to see how they eventually vote.

There are 2 factors that may have been underestimated by polling. Young voters are substantially less likely to have a home phone than older voters. Most polls use calls to home phones. Most polls focus on 'likely voters', often using turnout rates of demographics from previous elections. A few (Gallup Extended and others) are trying to adjust this based on an expectation that turnout of minorities and young voters will be at historically high levels. If these two factors have been underestimated, look out. It will be a double digit win for Obama and close to 400 electoral votes.

However it plays out 2 days from now, I believe John McCain was the only Republican candidate that had a chance to win the Presidency in this political climate. I think the John McCain from 2000 would have made this an extremely close race, but the Rove-esque McCain just really didn't have much of a chance.

But however it plays out on Tuesday, let's give John McCain some credit for putting up a good fight, sticking up for what he believes in and appearing on Saturday Night Live with the most popular person in this election, Tina Fey:


You know, John McCain is a pretty funny guy. He was outstanding at the Al Smith dinner and very comfortable in this skit. In 2002, he became the first sitting senator to host SNL and was a total goofball with a great Barbara Streisand imitation/putdown. Special guest appearance by Cindy McCain hawking 'McCain Fine Gold' (great name play) was a perfect role for her. You know, when Bob Dole lost the 1996 election to Bill Clinton (and before he became the spokesman for Viagra), he went on SNL and several other shows and was hysterical. Maybe Republicans running for President need to make sure the American public sees their funny side.