What is Obamas REAL lead in the polls?

[Captain Sensible]

Seeing as a large number of his supports are young and use mainly Cell phones or come from urban areas
how much larger do you think his lead is really?

[RC]

1. My semi educated guess would be around 65-80%

I don't even know anyone that will admit to supporting McCain.

[marlakay]

4. I am worried about all the red states

I know the blue ones will go for him with big numbers, but the red will vote "r" not for him but for the party.

[Sensitivity]

2. Major polling orgs. attempt to "statistically weight" for this factor -- review primaries results re

effectiveness of this methodology. Often the "statistical weighting" over-estimated this factor and Obama's polling numbers were higher that the election results.

[writes3000]

3. They were often wrong in states with high AA populations and the Western states.

That's the key, IMO.

[Sensitivity]

5. Statistical techniques can accurately weight sample to match the "population." Turnout and Lying to

to the pollster is harder to take into account especially when there is no historical pattern that can be used for reliable prediction. A turnout tsunami as applied to the AA vote and the "Bradley Effect" as it applies to white prejudice are such hard to predict factors. Sadly, systemic factors tend to suppress the AA and Youth vote regardless of enthusiasm.