Jerome Armstrong looks at recent polls, and points out the elephant in the room:
Armstrong also provides the data for voter breakdown by party in each election since 2000 (excluding 2002, when there were no exit polls). Voter ID by Year:
06 04 00 Democratic 38 37 39 Republican 36 37 35 Independent 26 26 27
If there’s one thing that virtually every poll has agreed on, it’s that many more voters identify themselves as Democrats this year, rather than Republicans. Most polls have estimated the Democratic edge at somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 points (although that edge has narrowed recently). Still, despite the advantage in identification, Obama can’t pull away from McCain. Indeed, in recent polls he is falling behind. If the overall partisan breakdown returns to ‘normal’ on election day– which is no sure thing — Obama will need to make significant inroads among Republicans and Independents in order to have a prayer. If he continues to pull the same percentage of Republicans and Independents that he does today, and those groups make up 5 percent more of the electorate, McCain’s narrow edge will expand to an advantage of several points.
