Who is ahead in the polls?

Depends on where you look, but Obama is still in the lead with expected electoral votes. ~source

It’s tied on lots of national tracking polls, but I think Obama is still slightly ahead in many swing states. It’s also unclear if Romney’s post-debate bounce is fading—some polls suggest that it is, or that it only reflected increased Republican enthusiasm in poll response rather than an actual shift in undecideds.

I recommend reading 538 for poll analysis. Very detailed and he has a good track record.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

On average Obama is still ahead, but the margin is still very thin after the post-1st-debate bounce Romney received. We won’t know what (if any) effect the VP debate will have until probably Monday or so, just in time for the second Presidential debate.

fwiw, Obama is still favored by about 2 to 1 to win the electoral college

Last I checked in the state votes (last night), they were neck-in-neck, but I’m guessing the others are accurate regarding electoral votes.

This amazes me. I constantly hear people whining about how awful Obama is, and yet he’s ahead in the polls. Not that I’m complaining…it’s just confusing to me.

It’s easy to whine about the status quo when you have no solutions to offer.

There is only one poll that counts, and that is on November 6. The most telling statistic from the last week though is the shift in “likely voters”. We have a pretty steady split in the electorate, and it really depends on who shows up on election day.

Since the first debate, there has been slippage in likely-Democratic voters, and a bit of an increase in likely-Republicans.

But, there are two more Obama/Romney debates to go.

Which poll? Do you mean 10 AM or 3 PM? They differ in various states and at different times of the day.

@YARNLADY That’s my point – too many polls., too often.

Who are all these people being polled? I’m serious, I’ve always wondered. No one’s ever asked me. I have never been part of a poll.

@deni Excellent point, who are these people? By the best accounts I’ve come across they are people who :
– have a land line phone
– are home when the pollers call
– are willing to answer the phone for a number that is usually ambiguously identified by Caller-ID if at all
– are willing to participate in a poll
In other words lonely oldsters (young folks hardly have land lines). It’s not clear how that skews the results but it’s hard to believe they’re representative of the entire population.

Also seems to depend heavily on who’s polling, probably because they can word the poll question to lead a favored direction. The polls of Fox news and right-wing PACs are hilarious and they rarely coincide with the results of any other polls conducted by folks with less reason to bias the results. Fox loves to resent results of calling 50 people right after some event that is less-than-favorable to the middle or left and announce loudly that America disapproves of whatever it was. They never seem to be polling anyone when the neo-cons embarrass themselves.

@dabbler Interesting! Are the polls you so often hear about really the ones they do over the phone, seemingly like telemarketers calling you that most people avoid? That is shocking. It’s 2012, not 1997! Hilarious that they use that to represent the population. I wonder how much effect the “polls” has on voters. Hopefully not much.

@deni Indeed. On the other hand it must be tough to be a pollster. I can’t think of any method that would really be representative… e.g. if you put someone with a clipboard down at the mall, they will only be talking with people who can afford to buy stuff, not the out-of-work or disabled.
The only political polls that have had a very good track record are election exit polls. Even those have suddenly become less accurate around the time the electronic voting machines got popular—coincidence?? hmmmmm….