This morning FiveThirtyEight.com projects Obama to garner 343.8 electoral votes to McCain’s 194.2. Obama wins 51.7% of the popular vote, McCain 46.7%. Obama’s chances of winning are 88.5%. Missouri and Indiana now lean to Obama.
Polls tell you how the public feels at the time the poll was taken. FiveThirtyEight projects the results of the election based on a systematic analysis of the polls.
The Bradley effect — lying to pollsters to disguise racial bias — appears, by all measures, to no longer be a factor. (It primarily applied to exit polls anyway.) People who won’t vote for Obama or any candidate because they are African-American feel no need to hide their bias. The current estimate is that Obama would be up an additional six points if race were not a factor. That is, the election would be a landslide.
After this election there will be a phenomenon known as the McCain effect — voting for McCain but telling the exit pollsters you voted for Obama because you are embarrassed to have voted for a erratic, angry, seemingly demented old man.