ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Obama 52%, McCain 43%

According to the new ABC News/Washington Post Poll (taken from 9/19 to 9/22) Barack Obama has a 52% to 43% lead over John McCain.

While poll watchers think this poll is an outlier or at best on the far end of the margin of error, it’s still obviously good news for Obama. Even if the poll is on the far end of the margin of error (+- 3) then Obama is still up +6 which would put the poll right in line with the Hotline/FD tracking poll which is also at Obama +6. It is a more favorable result than the current Research 2000 tracking poll (Obama +4), the Gallup tracking poll (Obama +3), and the Rasmussen tracking poll (+2.)

But both the Gallup & Rasmussen polls appear to be weighted in favor of the Republicans (by party ID) and when considering the margin of error in all of these polls, it’s possible that Obama’s real lead is around 5 to 6% nationally now.

Beyond the polls themselves there are some more factors we can consider. Some are positive for Obama and some for McCAin.

1. The Cell Phone Factor.

Are the polling firms accurately accounting for the fact that so many voters (in particular Barack Obama voters) are cell phone only people? I know my fiancee & I count for two such cell phone only Barack Obama voters and I personally know of many others. It’s clear that the vast majority of cell phone only people will be Obama voters.

Not only are most cell phone only people mostly in the 18 to 35 age group which is very pro-Obama but they tend to be higher educated and more likely to use the internet. These are all very good factors related to voting for Obama.

The question remains: How are the polling firms dealing with this? You may remember this was an issue in 2004 and it apparently didn’t make much of a difference in the end, but I think the amount of cellphone only users has gone up considerably in the last 4 years.

Advantage: Obama

2. The Bradley Effect & The Reverse Bradley Effect

During the primaries Obama outperformed his polls in some states and underperformed in other states. According to 538 that over and under performance was actually quite predictable based on the demographics of the states in question.

According to the analysis at 538, Obama is likely to do better than the polls in states like Virginia & North Carolina but to do less good in states such as West Virginia & Pennsylvania. Obviously that’s a mixed bag for Obama, but it may explain why he’s putting so much effort into North Carolina even though he’s not lead in any polls there (although he has been tied in a couple.)

Advantage: Mixed. But if the Obama campaign is aware of this and allocates campaign funds appropriately - they could use this to their advantage.

3. Voter Registration/Get Out The Vote Efforts

All indications are that the Democrats have gained a huge amount of registrations across the country since 2004. Simply put there are now a much higher % of registered Democrats than there were in 2004. A lot of that increase is because of the Obama campaign’s huge voter registration effort.

The Obama campaign also has a much larger GOTV “ground game” in place than Kerry did in 2004. The Obama campaign has invested a huge amount of their money on registering voters and on getting people to vote on election day. It’s very difficult (perhaps impossible) for the polls to take this into account.

Will Obama see a 2 or 3% increase in actual results vs. poll results because of it? It seems entirely possible. But it’s also hard to count on that until it’s actually proven on election day.

Advantage: Obama.

4. GOP Vote Suppression

In 2000 & and in 2004 the GOP used many techniques to keep Democrats from voting. The most well known stories are from Florida in 2000 & Ohio in 2004 but the truth is the GOP employs their dirty vote suppression tricks all across the country.

There have already been many reports of vote suppression taking place in 2008. It’s a difficult battle to fight for the Democrats and it’s likely to help McCain by at least 1% on election day.

The good news for the Democrats is that the Obama campaign appears to be fighting back on vote suppression much harder than Kerry or Gore did and because of the history of the last two elections people will be much more aware of the problem on November 4th.

Advantage: McCain.

5. Electronic Voting Machines.

There are many states that use nothing but electronic voting machines with no paper trail at all.

The good news for the Democrats is that they appear to be aware of the possible fraud involved with such machines and they are doing their own exit polling to see if any suspicious results occur. They are saying now that they will challenge any suspicious results.

Advantage: McCain.

2008, Polls