There have been a couple of general ballot polls out in the past couple of days (namely, Pew and ABC/Washington Post) purporting to show a sudden “surge” of Republican momentum in the last few days of the election. Hotline editor Chuck Todd does the digging and comes up with the 1994 general ballot polls from around this time:
A trip through The Hotline archives for the weekend before the ’94 election shows the generic ballot as follows:ABC: — 47-46 in favor of the Dems (a 6-point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
Gallup: — 51-44 for the GOP (a 4 point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
NBC: — 46-35 for the GOP (a 2 point swing in the two weeks toward the Dems)
Times Mirror: — 48-43 for the GOP (a 7 point swing in the last month toward the Dems)
I’m not suggesting that this election won’t be close, but I definitely am suggesting that this “natural tightening” in election eve polls is something to keep in mind before anyone potentially loses their head or chews off their fingernails.
Does anyone have any insight about the recent Polimetrix poll that shows Lamont/Lieberman at 44/48, amongst other things? I saw this on MyLeftNutmeg. I sure hope that it’s right, but it is different than the other results thus far.
this close in. As much as I want to believe some of the recent numbers, I have to remind myself that noe of it counts ’til the votes are all in.
When you think about the logic, it would be surprising if the polls did *not* tighten.
The election in the House will be extremely tight. Even if the Dems pick up 30 seats, they will have less than 54% of the seats. As you get closer to election day, undecideds decide and decideds realize that the abstract question (“Do you want the Dems or Republicans to control the House.”) actually depends in part on their vote. Thus, since we expect barely more than half of Americans to vote D, I would expect the day before the election that the abstract polls would be tight.
Now, go vote since (as the cliche goes) there is only one poll that counts.
-Dan