A few things to keep in mind when looking at polls

Polls of “Likely Voters” are more reliable than polls of “Registered Voters.”

Don’t pay attention to the popular vote. Obama will probably net millions of votes over Romney in California. Romney will probably net millions of votes over Obama in Texas. The goal is for the candidate to get one more vote than his opponent in swing states like Florida and Ohio. If he does then he gets the entire state. There are only two states that candidates can split: Nebraska and Maine. Because of their low numbers of electoral votes it probably wouldn’t matter if they did split.

Never look at one poll. Real Clear Politics does a good job of tracking numerous polls and taking the average of them all. They use the following: Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, NBC, Franklin & Marshall, Purple Strategies, etc.

Undecided voters more often than not go to the challenger. If the incumbent is already at 50% or more then he is good to go in that state. If he is between 48% or 49% then he is probably OK. If the incumbent is at 46% or 47% then it is too close to call. If he is at 45% or lower then the incumbent is in trouble.

Here are the numbers in swings states based on Real Clear Politics. These are the states we need to pay attention to.

Florida: Obama 45% Romney 45%

Ohio: Obama 47% Romney 43%

Virginia: Obama 46% Romney 45%

North Carolina: Obama 47% Romney 46%

Colorado: Obama 47% Romney 43%

Iowa: Obama 46% Romney 45%

Michigan: Obama 47% Romney 45%

Most states aren’t listed. The party that won those unlisted states in 2008 will “hold serve” in 2012 except Indiana. Experts say Indiana will go to Romney in 2012.

Another determining factor is watching trends from month to month.

Didnt know we had an expert on polls on the site

Like i said before right wingers are Gods gifts to mankind, theres nothing they cant do

So Obama is going to be our president for another four years. 

Great.

I posted on this subject pretty in-depth last week.

The following statement is not correct:

<<Undecided voters more often than not go to the challenger. >>

The rest is pretty much accurate, although real clear politics is not a poll in and of itself.

Zogby is the most preferred other than internal polling where the candidate can control the question. Often times, polls are done for the specific purpose of manipulating public opinion.

Yes, I am aware of the Dick Morris article that the original poster essentially copied and pasted (was it possible to think that the poster would have typed that on his own)?

Nate Silver is likely the most respected, non-baised source on polling. Here is a great article that discussed the subject with emperical data.

Who did Bill Clinton first contacted to gauge whether he should come out with the truth when news of the Monica Lewinsky affair broke....?

Dick Morris...........

Clinton asked Morris to conduct polls on how he should handle the crisis.....

Djbrow is actually on point here again..

Nate Silver is arguably the most well respected statistician right now.

He's also written books about saber-metricians concerning baseball utilizing different baseball stats as well as formulating his own stats to prove different theories regarding steroids, the definition of clutch hitting, ERA vs WHIP, etc...