Are we currently polling ahead in North Carolina? Maybe.
The Huffington Post's Pollster has us narrowly behind in North Carolina (http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2012-north-carolina-president-romney-vs-obama?gec).
Specifically, Pollsters shows Romney at 48.9% and the President at 46.5%
Real Clear Politics and the NYT 538 blog offer a similar view of the current polling in North Carolina (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/nc/north_carolina_romney_vs_obama-1784.html http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/)
But Pollster allows you to make your own aggregate polling graphs using different data filters. If you filter out the internet polls and automated robo-phone call polls, the results change significantly, and which party is leading depends on how much smoothing you use to to draw the trend line tracking the polling data points:
47.2% Obama vs. 44% Romney (less smoothing)
46.5% Romney vs. 46.1% Obama (moderate smoothing)
47.1% Obama vs. 46.1% Romney (more smoothing)
If there is a fundamental flaw in the automated-phone-call methodology, then the race in NC may be shaping up differently than how it is being widely reported.
