Reply #11: Months ago, Nate Silver at 538 published a regression that generally describes how gaps close [View All]

[Abacus]

as the election nears, with the candidate behind making up more ground. Using his formula, I extracted that McCain will take around 57% of undecideds. This number has held pretty steady despite vacillations in the underlying data. At the moment, I'm showing a state by state average of 54% of undecideds going for McCain -- this number is more variable but trends toward the 57% mentioned previously. That national average, estimated from national polls only, however, indicates a slightly different story, with Obama holding a minimal, but consistent advantage here, currently McCain only registers about 48% of undecideds.

In short, I have been in agreement with Chuck Todd on this; we need to be pretty close to majority come election day.