gallops last poll came out today, romney 49, obama 48

interesting

I'm not confident enough to make a real prediction, but I think it will either be Obama just barely beating Romney or Romney beating Obama by a fairly large margin ...

At the moment I think that of people who are going to vote about 45% are intending on voting for Romney, about 46% are intending on voting for Obama, and about 9% plan on voting for a third party candidate or are truly undecided. I think the two most likely outcomes are for third party voters to maintain their vote and the undecided voters to split pretty evenly which leads to an Obama win, or for the third party vote to disappear into Romney and for undecided voters to split in favour of Romney leading to a significant win for Romney.

I live in Wisconsin and every comercial break there is a tammy baldwin, thommy thompson, and obama commercial with Romney sprinkled in every once in a while and a Ryan one even more scarce. On the radio its non stop "Romney actually said 47% of Americans don't matter"

I don't think Romney will win the electoral college.  I think Obama did too good of a job pulling out the George W. technique and destroying romney early in the key states.  However, Romney could eek out a popular vote victory, especially with states like new york still recovering from sandy that would have gone Obama by large margins.  

I think you guys are overestamating the third party vote.  I would anticipate the third party vote to be more like 3%.

so in my opinion, I think the popular vote will end up with romney or Obama at 49% and 48%, with either of them possibly ahead by 1%.  The other parties will get 3%.

so there are way more democratic ads then republican?  Hmmm, I would of thought it would be the other way around.  Maybe the republicans have decided to cede wisconsin...

Never really thought Romney had a chance there anyway.

That 9% wasn't strictly third party vote ... It included undecided voters too.

I figure there are (probably) about 4% to 6% of people who are intending on voting for a third party candidate, and about 4% to 6% of people who are probably still undecided.

Margin of error only matters for individual polls. In polling composites, the margin of error is reduced SIGNIFICANTLY. Right now most swing state polls and national polls are moving in Obama's direction. The consensus is that Obama is going to win. So long as the people who say they are likely voters actually vote, of course.

There have been instances when the polling consensus has been off, but the vast majority of the time when most of the polls begin to move in one direction, THOSE are the polls that are right. Not the handful of outliers that see something else.

fivethirtyeight.com is now seeing a 91.5 % chance of an Obama victory come tomorrow. The forecast has been moving in his direction since mid October, and this is by far the highest rating he's ever had on the site, and it's all because of the direction of the polling.

Romney's only real shot is that the polling consensus is simply wrong, and the handful of pollsters showing better numbers for him are correct. Ohio and several other state polls would need to be biased toward Obama by about 3-4% for this to happen.

There is always that chance, of course, which is why Romney still has an 8.5% chance of victory. It would just take the numbers to be wrong by an unprecedented amount.

I live right on the border (I can see Ohio form my place) so I get all the ads and I still don't matter as no one comes to Kentucky.  All the down side with no sense of inflated self worth. 

Ha-rumph!

being off by 3-4% is hardly unprecedented

since we are going off of averages, lets look at realclearpolitics 2008 numbers

Colorado 

RCP 5.5 Obama Actual 8.5 Obama +3%

Iowa 

RCP 15.3 Obama Actual 9.3% Obama -6%

Michigan 

RCP 13.5% Obama Actual 16.5% Obama +3%

Nevada

RCP 6.5% Obama Actual 12.4% Obama +5.9%

New Mexico

RCP 7.3% Obama Actual 14.7% Obama +7.4%

Pennsylvania

RCP 7.3% Obama Actual 10.4% Obama +3.1%

That is just from the swing or lean states in 2008 that were off by more than 3%.  There is definitely a precedent for these polls being off by 3% or more.  

yeah people with obama flyers have come to my apartment 4 times already. All obama ads but I also live in Milwaukee which might make a little more sense considering its more urban and close to illinois.

As for cedeing I don't know about that. I remember the Govna' saying he was dissapointed with early voting turn out for obama

“If the election was held today, President Barack Obama would lose the state of Wisconsin because where his base is, we have not turned out the vote early,” Mayor Michael Hancock told a Democratic rally. “The suburbs and rural parts of Wisconsin — the Republican base — are voting. President Obama’s base has yet to go vote.

“We’ve got to get our people to go vote,” Hancock said.

Later Hancock talks to the Washington Examiner and explains,

“This is a very close race, and the point we’re trying to make is make sure the base shows up, turns out and begins to vote early,” Hancock said. “I saw where the votes were rolling in, and I said we’ve got to make sure that where the president’s base is, they get out and vote.”