Too Close To Call

Too Close To Call

Investors' Business Daily is rather proud of the fact that their polling organization was closest to correct with the 2004 election prediction--and they are showing a race too close to call, with Obama 2.1 points ahead of McCain--but the margin of error is 3.4 points. Which means that within a 95% confidence interval, McCain could be ahead of Obama.

Of course, how those votes are distributed, state by state, really matters. If 200,000 voters went from undecided to McCain--but all those voters were in Idaho, Alaska, and Wyoming, it wouldn't matter--McCain has those states in the bag. Similarly, if those 200,000 voters were in two or three of the battleground states, that might be enough for McCain to win.

So remember: it's close. If you live in one of the battleground states, your vote really matters! Unless you were going to vote for Obama, in which case it doesn't much matter, and you might as well stay home or vote for Ralph Nader.