10/18 - A Little Poll Crunching

[ruggerson]

Realclear politics lists most of the major polls and averages them out to a statistical lead in the horserace.

What they don't do is to average out each candidate's raw numbers.

Bush's current average in this latest round of eight national polls is:

47.5

If you use the yardstick that a President must be polling near 50 or above to be safely assured of re election, and if you use the yardstick that a President almost always ends up with almost exactly what his last poll numbers show, as the undecideds usually break overwhelmingly for the challenger, this means Bush is in deep trouble.

If you are generous and assume Nader gets 1.5 of the vote (which is much more than expected, it will more than likely be 1 percent or less) this means that Bush/Nader combined will be roughly 49% of the vote.

This translates into the late deciders pushing Kerry easily over the 50% mark and winning the race. Not in a route, but not in as razor close a finish as many would expect.

If Bush's latest little bump has peaked here and the race grows even tighter in the next 15 days, this obviously means that Kerry's eventualy margin grows larger.

As the race stands today, given historical trends if the election were held right now, it would be roughly:

Bush 48
Kerry 50