Friday, August 29, 2008

A Barack Bounce

Finally, the polls have indicated the beginning of a bounce towards Barack Obama. The Wednesday tracking polling done by Gallup indicated a substantial one-day six percentage point lurch towards Obama. However, in sharp contrast, the Rasmussen tracking poll actually shifted one percentage point towards McCain on the same day. This just shows you how volatile polling can be. The best way to deal with this variation across polls is to average the results. When we do this and crunch the numbers through the model, we come up with a 0.5 percentage point shift towards Obama during the previous 24 hours:

The shift back over to Obama in the popular vote has also put him back on top in the Electoral College:


Obama's Electoral College vote lead is, of course, fragile since it is based on extremely slender margins in New Mexico and New Hampshire. The updated electoral map is shown below:


McCain's lead in Ohio appears to be extremely slender and his lead in Colorado is only slightly less fragile. My expection is that Obama's lead will jump in response to his well-received acceptance speech on Thursday evening. We should see that effect in the polls in two days time.

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