A point about the Zogby International poll which I forgot to make in the original post: according to Zogby, John McCain outperformed Barack Obama, for the first time in weeks, on one day, namely the last day of polling, which was Friday.
47% of those polled by Zogby Friday said they would vote for Obama, against 48% who said they planned to vote for McCain.
We will see Sunday whether Friday was an outlier or whether McCain is indeed surging. Another poll will be published tomorrow, if the gap becomes bigger, Friday will have been an outlier. If today’s polling, however, confirms Friday’s poll, we could see a far more interesting election day than most expect.
Having said that, this election is not going to be decided on the basis of the popular vote. It’s going to be decided by individual states. And as Real Clear Politics‘ electoral map shows, it is here where Obama is truly leading comfortably.
One but about RCP’s electoral map: I do not completely agree with it, especially not with its map without toss up states. In that no toss-up map, Obama beats McCain easily, in quite a landslide: 353 electoral votes against 185. I do not see that happening, especially not because they give Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and others to McCain, where I think McCain will do better; at least in one of them, that is.
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As to the Zogby polling, see here for a simple explanation of why, as always, a single outlier poll is not usually a good idea, and especially not when it’s based on a single day.
As to your comment about the states Obama will win, I actually tend to agree. Even though he’s further ahead in Ohio than in Florida, I find it hard to believe Obama will win Ohio. I see him as more likely to win Florida, and I see a significant chance he could lose both.
Pennsylvania though, I simply don’t see it for the McCain campaign. The last time PA went Republican was in 1988. They voted for Clinton twice, Gore and then Kerry. Even considering some tightening (and there does seem to be some of that) I think PA stays blue this round.