Could Obama Lose the Election Even Though He’s Ahead in the Polls?

Check out the latest polling numbers (especially those polls not carried out by the Obamessiah-worshiping Obamedia).

From Gateway Pundit, note how Obama only has between a 3 to 6 percent lead if you ignore the slavering Lie-beral media results:

Notice anything odd yet predictable? The three polls done by MSM outlets are the outliers (outliars?). A coincidence? I don’t think so. It’s been like that for months. Now pull those out and do the math.

Obama and McCain are ‘functionally’ tied:

Despite widespread polling to the contrary, McInturff wrote that the campaign is functionally tied across the battleground states with our numbers improving sharply over the last four tracks.

As other public polls begin to show Sen. Obama dropping below 50 percent and the margin over McCain beginning to approach margin of error with a week left, all signs say we are headed to an election that may easily be too close to call by next Tuesday, he said.

And the lead Obama has over McCain might even be as low as a mere 2.8%:

So Obama is still ahead in basically all the polls (by very slightly, a negligible lead well within the margin of error for these kind of statistics). So much for that landslide walkover… But why do I conjecture that he might still lose?

Because historically, pre-election polls have been shown to be biased in favour of the Democrat candidate.

In 8 Presidential elections over 32 years, the polls have – without fail – overstated public support for the Democratic candidate. The margin of error has been by anywhere between 0 to 14.8 points, as compared to actual voting day results.

That means that Obama, with his mere 2.8 point lead, could be in for a loss as bad as 12 points behind McCain come actual voting day.

That was polling in general. For Obama specifically, polls overestimated Obama’s strength by 7% throughout this year.

The world may yet survive this American election.

UPDATE 1 NOV 2008: Wouldn’t you know it! On a tip from hutchrun, Zogby’s poll shows McCain ahead of Obama by one point!

Following from Day by Day:

Following from Day by Day:

Ann Coulter Researches the Pro-Democrat Poll Bias Through 8 Presidential Elections

Think Barack Obama has McCain beat, based on the polling data which all say that Obama is leading by several points?

If so, you obviously must not know about the blatant and massive, documented pro-Obama and anti-Palin bias in the US media.

But besides that, history has proven that polls consistently favour the Democrat Presidential candidate, overstating support for the Democrats by wide margins of error.

The following is summarized from Ann Coulter’s article:

Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.

1976
Jimmy Carter (D) vs Gerald Ford (R)
Poll predictions: Carter +15 over Ford
Election results: Carter +2.1 over Ford
Bias error: 12.9 points in favour of Democrats

1980
Jimmy Carter (D) vs Ronald Reagan (R)
Poll predictions: Carter +3 over Reagan
Election results: Reagan +10 over Carter
Bias error: 13 points in favour of Democrats

1984
Walter Mondale (D) vs Ronald Reagan (R)
Poll predictions: Reagan +4, +9 or +13 over Mondale
Election results: Reagan +18.8 over Mondale
Bias error: 14.8, 9.8 or 5.8 points in favour of Democrats

1988
Michael Dukakis (D) vs George H.W. Bush (R)
Poll predictions: Bush +5 over Dukakis
Election results: Bush +7.8 over Dukakis
Bias error: 2.8 points in favour of Democrats

1992
Bill Clinton (D) vs George H.W. Bush (R)
Poll predictions: Clinton +15 or +12 over Bush
Election results: Clinton +5.3 over Bush
Bias error: 9.7 or 6.7 points in favour of Democrats

1996
Bill Clinton (D) vs Bob Dole (R)
Poll predictions: Clinton +22 over Dole
Election results: Clinton +9 over Dole
Bias error: 13 points in favour of Democrats

2000
Al Gore (D) vs George W. Bush (R)
Poll predictions: Gore +6 over Bush
Election results: Bush over Gore by a slight margin
Bias error: 6 points in favour of Democrats

2004
John Kerry (D) vs George W. Bush (R)
Poll predictions: Bush +1 to +3 over Kerry
Election results: Bush +2.4 over Kerry
Bias error: 1.4 points in favour of Democrats to 1.6 points in favour of Republicans

2008
Barack Hussein Obama (D) vs John McCain (R)
Poll predictions: Obama over McCain, insert own imaginary number
Election results: Less than two weeks to go
Bias error: As always, in favour of Democrats

I guess the above history lesson might explain the cause behind Voxdays’ Five Point Rule – In general, if a Democrat leads by less than five points in the polls, he loses.

The Politico confirms it:

Respected polling analyst Mark Blumenthal found that during the Democratic primaries this year, preliminary exit polls overestimated Obama’s strength in 18 of 20 states, by an average error of 7 percentage points, based on leaked early results.

And while we’re on that note, take a look at some of the more objective (read: Non-Obama-leg-tingling) polls.

Such as this one where Obama has but ameasly 2.8-point lead over McCain.

——————————

UPDATE 2012: Okay, so Obama won in 2008.

See also via AoSHQ, from Powerline:

—————–

UPDATE: The media does this on purpose, to discourage voters from even voting. See also via AoSHQ this piece on How Carter Beat Reagan (not a typo!).

And the Obama campaign might try this for 2012.

Here might be what’s happenng too – editors fudge results, the Shy Tory Factor, and a version of The Bradley Effect.