The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, interviewed 1,230 registered voters in the national sample, as well as 566 registered voters in Missouri, 722 in Ohio and 694 in Wisconsin from Saturday through Tuesday. The margin of sampling error for the national sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points; for the state polling it is plus or minus 4 percentage points....it is also merely a "registered voters" poll, as opposed to a "likely voters" poll. The article by Richard Brownstein claims that the poll was taken Saturday through Tuesday, but if the most polling was done on the weekend, the numbers will favor Democrats. (Republicans are out having a life on the weekend!)
John Fund had an article on Opinion Journal that explained how polling is not longer relevant. The changes in communication and the polarization of the population makes it almost impossible to get an accurate sample. Polls are nothing but a campaign tool to influence voters.