Polls must, of course, always be taken with a grain of salt. But some are more reliable than others.
The poll numbers, over the past month or two, showing Clinton supporters defecting to McCain, are suspect. Emotions are running high. Clinton supporters are upset, and angry at Obama. While I'm sure some of them -- take, for example, the West Virginian crackers who appeared on The Daily Show a few weeks back parroting the "Hussein" talking point -- WILL vote McCain rather than Obama, I don't think it's going to be as wide a margin as the polls have suggested. I think over the next month we're going to see those numbers start to correct themselves.
On the other hand, in a highly charged partisan election, polls that ARE a good indicator of how people are going to vote are the ones that show party affiliation. And according to
Rasmussen, the number of self-described Democrats is at an all-time high, as is the gap between Dems and Republicans.
Barack Obama’s Party now has the largest partisan advantage over the Republicans since Rasmussen Reports began tracking this data on a monthly basis nearly six years ago [...]
Democrats have the advantage among all age groups and also lead among those who earn less than $75,000 a year. The two parties are even among higher-income adults. Party identification is essentially even among Investors but Democrats have a 47% to 25% advantage among non-Investors.
May was also the fourth straight month that the number of Democrats topped 41%. Prior to February of this year, neither party had ever reached the 39% level of support.
My
predictions from a few posts back are on course.