Since party self-identification predicts presidential preference at about the 90% level, that implies a 2.3% excess preference for Obama in registered voter polls today.
On the basis of no particular analysis, I'd say that if adjusted for relative enthusiasm to vote that excess Obama preference is probably more like 3.0 to 3.5%.
Here is the local New York liberal paper's election analyst Nate Silver trying to disprove the claim by Dick Morris that in presidential races going way back, the undecided vote has in large part gone to the challenger. Silver seems to be correct if the Vice President is counted as an incumbent. However, for elections like the present one that include the actual incumbent president, he actually proves Morris's point.
All of that explains the Obama campaign's present desperate appeal to it's base, when standard election lore is that a presidential candidate must run to the center. If he can't get his base's enthusiasm up, he's doomed.
Here is a fresh poll, done by a couple of respected pollsters for the WSJ and NBC, of adults of all things. Not likely voters. Not voters at all. Adults! At least the Journal has the good sense to point out these facts:
- But the poll also points to a range of strengths for the challenger. Mr. Romney tops Mr. Obama, 43% to 36%, on which candidate is seen as better equipped to improve the economy, a central plank of the Romney campaign. He is now winning among independents, while his support base among conservatives, seniors and white men appears far more eager to vote than do Mr. Obama's core backers.
- The poll found that blacks, Hispanics and young voters now show significantly less interest in the election than they did in the summer of 2008. The poll underscores why the Obama campaign is spending huge sums on get-out-the-vote operations in battleground states.
- Another potential asset for Mr. Romney is that undecided voters appear more likely to move his way as Election Day draws near. Digging through accumulated data since May, Mr. Hart found that views of the economy and Mr. Obama's own job performance were particularly sour among the ranks of the undecided.
