Sure. Using their special sauce that purposely over samples ‘Rats, under samples Pubs, predicts a huge youth turnout (which early voting polls are not showing), ignores the Palin effect, ignores the cohesion that has occurred among conservatives and any number of other factors, they come up with a squeaker for Obama.
Two point margin or less for Obama and McCain can win the states necessary to pull this out. If it’s a 5-point margin, forget it.
When you look at the blowout states, it’s true that Obama gets a larger raw vote majority from his big wins than McCain gets from his big wins.
But it’s about 3-4 million votes when you net out the medium southern states going for McCain (plus Texas) vs. NY/New England/California/Illinois. And Obama builds up a 200-100 advantage on electoral votes from those “blowout” states.
Which means that McCain has to win a bunch of close states. In order to win enough of those he has to cut into that 4 million vote advantage. If Obama’s up by 5 points nationwide, that’s over 6 million votes, which means Obama’s outperforming McCain in the close states and McCain simply can’t win enough of them, unless it’s the straightest of inside straights ever drawn.
If the overall race is more like 2%, that’s 2.5 million votes and that means McCain’s outperforming Obama in the close states (4 million less 2.5 million), and that’s what he needs to pull this out. Doesn’t guarantee it, but that’s what gives him a fighting chance.
So this is the poll we should hope is correct.