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Media Hype and election Polls (or the sky is falling

While one should be skeptical about the predictive capacity of head to head polls at this stage of the campaign, especially national ones, in terms of the latter Obama is doing just fine, thank you. The recent NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll (July 18th-21st) has Obama 6% ahead of McCain, 47%-41%. RealClear Politics (July 25th) has him 4.8% ahead in its average of recent polls. Gallop daily tracking on July 25th has Obama with a 6% lead, and Rasmussen’s daily poll has him by 5%. Perhaps most significantly, when third party candidates are factored in, as they were in the NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, Obama turns out to be 13% ahead of McCain, 48% to 35% (with Nader at 5%, Barr at 2%, and a 4.4% margin of error). In a four way match up Obama’s share of the vote hardly changes (he moves up from 47% to 48%), while McCain drops (from 41% to 35%). Although the margin of error in the four way race is greater than in the two way race, the difference between Obama and McCain is significant, and outside of the margin of error. Notice that Obama retains support while McCain loses support.

It’s worth mentioning that half of the last ten elections have been won by less than 6%. Also, when third party candidates are a significant factor (1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000), the margin of victory has been below 13% in every case. If Obama won by 13%, it would be a landslide, and the third highest popular vote total in the last ten elections. See Dave Leip’s Atlas U.S. Presidential ElectionsMORE