A
Research 2000 poll of 600 likely voters, commissioned by the far-Left Daily Kos website, shows a McCain lead of 17 points in North Carolina, thus confirming the huge bounce indicated by the poll results released by SurveyUSA on Wednesday.
McCain (R) 55%
Obama (D) 38%
And check out the party samples used in this poll, hardly biased for Republicans:
Dem 263 44%
Rep 216 35%
Ind 121 21%
The Civitas Intitute has released their own poll on the Presidential race, showing McCain up three points:
McCain 47%
Obama 44%
CI raises a point on this at their blog, the
Red Clay Citizen:
One thing I do want to emphasize is this poll differs from our usual monthly polling in that it samples all registered voters.[...]
This poll is probably more accurate of the larger electorate, but not necessarily those most likely to actually show up and vote.
Polls of registered voters are often said to lean toward Democrats, while polls of likely voters use voter history to determine their numbers. The figure to cut from Democrats in "registered voters" polls to get to "likely voters" is usually said to be 2%.
However, one does have to wonder about voter enthusiasm for Obama this year. Blacks will almost certainly turn out to vote in record numbers, and those votes will go to Obama in
at least the usual 9-to-1 ratio for Democrats. Do polls of likely voters account for the likely spike in voting by this group?
Counteracting this will likely be a high number of blue collar Democrats who vote for McCain. Also, young voters in general may not be voting overwhelmingly for Obama, as one could have reasonably speculated a few months ago.