How much of it is the media needing to sell a horse race?

A win is a win is a win.

Is there any chance they have changed their likely voter screens?

Really disappointed to see the downgrade on NY-26.  There's one who really needs to go.  

 Why would an "undecided" voter, who ostensibly would be a questioning one, suddenly go with the Republicans on the eve of the election, after looking hard at the Democrats for the last couple of months?

 I can't come up with one single reason.

 And yet that's what's playing out in the polls.

 We have one galactically dumb electorate.

I'm not buying it.  I'm not worried about these polls (we've seen enough questionable polls to know to not worry about these), i'm more worried about all the voter suppression the repubs are working at.   People are fed up.   Have you seen those Ohio numbers?  And the poll that came out today that showed Gillibrand up over Sweeney had her with strong support in rural regions.  Enough people get it at this point.   And at least in NY I think we have enough reasons why the generic polls are meaningless.   Sweeney has serious problems.  Same with Sue kelly.  Same with Kuhl and Reynolds.   And Walsh's district voted for Kerry.    We've got better candidates, they've got serious problems.  

The goal was to win 15 seats.   I'm confident we will do that.  Anything else is icing on the victory cake.

I think we all would like to see the conservative movement crushed, as you say, but we need the win, regardless of how it comes.  Buzzer beaters are alright by me.  

In order to defeat the conservative movement, what we really need to do is show the failure of their policies and the bankruptcy of their ideas.  And we need to be in power to be effective at that.

Chris,

If you can go from "extremely confident" to "a little bit worried" in just 12 hours, it leads me to believe that this polling stuff is a lot of horseshit and we ought to just see what the results are on Tuesday evening.  Otherwise, we just make ourselves nuts with nervous number-crunching that doesn't hold up from one sunset to the next.

I agree with that, they keep saying it's all local, etc.  But then Bush goes out and says he's going to keep Rumsfeld, Nancy Pelosi would be scary, and John Kerry insults the troops.

They say it's all local then tout national unemployment numbers.  It's all local, but the New Jersey courts just said gay marriage should be allowed.  Yeah, it's all local lol

Well, in Maryland the polls between OMalley and Ehrlich are now neck and neck and for some ungodly reason Steele is still in it --altho I don't think any sane person thinks he has a chance.  But if a blue state like ours is sticking with its pug gov then the anti-bush sentiment isn't as strong as we may have thought.

http://pollster.com/polls/?state=MD& race=governor_race

  Someone else.

It's hard not to get extremely nervous right before election. This winning stuff isn't easy, and while it's easy and oh-so-inviting to get swept up in fantasies of a large Dem majority in the House, there are no guarantees in life, just hard work to keep trying to achieve them.

Polling, AKA the horse race, has been THE story for this election.
Not the candidates.
Not the issues.
Polls are all over the place.
They move from all Americans, to Registered voters, to Likely voters-different samples equal different numbers.  
The samples are subjective in the combination by gender, by race, by income, by region.

Another possiblilty in move to the Republicans: Push-Poll calls and nuisance calls-probaby part of their big GOTV effort.
I got a Push-Poll call that framed the stem cell issue as "Medical research on unborn babies."

because their eyes are moving.

Old standard was, you know they're lying because their lips are moving.  But, the New GOP has made great strides in the art of lying.  Don't even have to be awake, much less open their mouths.  Long as they've got that REM happening in their sleep, you can be sure they're lying.

I dont know how effective are dirty tricks and sleaze Ads but what happened to McCain says it is effective.

Dems are no match for this--maybe they should have a clean version of robocalls--like :  Do you know Republicans will privatize Social Security and do not like to investigate war profiteering.  Do you know they rubberstamp all failed policies and dont want to raise the minimum wage

This is natural party realignment near the election. As it gets closer, more and more Republicans and Democrats (and indies who lean in either direction) come home to roost beside their party's candidate.

I don't see this as a big cause for alarm; it's just going to mean that the election will be a little closer than we would have liked. If the Dems don't take control of the House, then I'll be concerned. If we take the House and the Senate, I'll be partying for two solid days.

We'll have to wait to see, of course.  But I reject both alternatives--that one election could possibly be the end of our long national nightmare, or that a major wave in the House is not possible.  As I've argued in a couple of recommended diaries here, a single wave election victory is huge step forward, but it's just a step up to another stage of struggle.  So it's not at all the hope for a silver bullet that has me excited about this election.

The Democrats have done a great deal wrong in this race, as we have all explained to one another for lo these many months.  A while back, I did a series of diaries comparing the generic congressional lead to other macro indicators--presidential approval, right track/wrong direction--and I concluded that the Democrats were not doing a good job of translating general discontent into a specific preference for Dems in Congress.

I bring this up now for one reason: it means that we could have run a much stronger campaign than we did run.  So even if we fall short of our highest expectations this time, it's not because we couldn't reach them, only because didn't reach them, for lack of doing everything we could.  We have still not reached critical mass, where our activism from below regularly blasts through the party hierarchy's stone walls of folly.  However we do this time, the real battle--in terms of what's hardest and most immediately important--remains the battle within the party.

Until we win that battle, election outcomes will necessarily reflect the divided, internally conflicted nature of our party--not to mention the rightwing media environment, the punditalkcracy, etc.  They will not be true measures of what we are capable of.  They will be measures we easily could have, and should have exceeded.  This is not to downplay their importance, not for a minute.  Particularly in these last few hours, they are all that counts for us.  But they are not us, nor even a reflection of us.  They are a reflection of the struggle going on in our party--a struggle that begins again in earnest the day after election day.

What are the chances that these sudden and odd changes in the overall numbers are due to some sort of polling fraud, either by polling outfits themselves, who are sympathetic to if not run by the GOP, and/or caving into massive GOP pressure and enticements, or by the GOP's having found some other way of gaming these polls (e.g. getting a hold of the lists of people to be polled or people calling them, and getting them to favor the GOP), in order to set up a more favorable polling context in which to steal the election?

Sorry to be putting on my tinfoil hat here, but this just seems strange to me, that so many people suddenly switched back to the GOP at the last minute due to Kerry's joke, the Saddam verdict, and other last-minute developments. And I wouldn't put ANYTHING past these thugs at this point. They are so desperate not to lose, and so lacking in scruples and decency, that I'm not ruling anything out on their part, including physical violence.

Perhaps the most likely scenario is that none of our predictions will come true, because so many races will be super-close and unresolved for weeks or months after Nov. 7.  I'm expecting the coming months to be big-time ugly, with lots of challenges, lawsuits, recounts, and electoral chaos of all sorts.  This thing could be up in the air for quite awhile....

I am less concerned about all these polls and feel confident the Dems will gain a majority in the House. Why?

I've been out canvassing all day in a very Repub leaning district where Bush got over 60% in 2004 and the incumbent Repub has the machinery and money while the Dem challenger had very little money and practically no help from Rahm. The neighborhoods were all working class. Most folks know about the election but not sure if they'll have the time to get to the polls. Those that were certain were all voting Dem. And those that have already voted absentee by a 8-10 margin said they voted Dem. Then there were those that will vote Repub as they have always voted that way.

This race were the Dem should have no chance will be close. If this true in all other districts then  the likelihood that some of these races will flip is high. Simple probabilities insure that the Dems will win a majority as these competive races mostly have Repub incumbents.

Looking at the internals for this poll, their LV screen seems flawed to me. There is a definite bias toward upper income, Southerns and caucasians. While some of these groups may be more likely to vote, the numbers seem to be weighted too heavily in their direction. Also, the likely voter split is 50% male and 50% female. What's the norm on that?

I think that the Dems will pick up 20 or so seats and get a slim majority in the House, 4 or 5 seats in the Senate, and as many as 7 Governors race.  No matter how you slice it, that is a major ass-kicking.  Dreams of picking up both houses and 50 or more seats were probably a bit premature, but just winning enough to control the House is a major victory.

Furthermore, look at the nature of the victory.  Look at states like Montana, where the Senate race is neck and neck with a GOP incumbent (even if it's an incompetent one), and Idaho, where a Governors race and a House race are still in play, and Wyoming, where the House seat is still in play, and South Dakota, where the Dems are up 40 points to hold the House seat.  The Democratic Party could come out of this election with both Senate seats and the Governor's mansion in Montana, the Governor's mansion and one of the House seats in ID, and the only House seats in WY and SD.  All of these Upper Plains state and Mountain West states are VERY libertarian.  Libertarians have stuck with the GOP through the years on the issues of taxes and the NRA.  However, other important libertarian issues are small government, balanced budget, personal freedom, and non-intervention foreign policy.  Libertarians are completely against Iraq and any foreign policy misadventures and are very strongly opposed to laws like the Patriot Act and the recent pro-torture bill that give the government almost unchecked power to intrude on any part of a person's life.  It appears that the strong showing in these highly libertarian areas are a sign that that part of the GOP base is eroding.

Also, look at races like NC-11, where Shuler, an evangelical Christian is running as a Democrat, and IN-08, where the evangelical Christian Republican is getting trounced.  Evangelicals, at least those that recognize that God's will actually does not include mass slaughter for oil money and trouncing on the poor at home, are leaving the party as well.  These are fundamental shifts in party alignments as the Democratic party reclaims moderates of all stripes as the GOP gets more an more radical.  Even if the House victory is slim and the Senate is a little short, these are trends that the Democrats should capitalize on and take command for good in 08.

I recall the polls were tightening before the 1994 mid term.  No one predicted the size of the Repugnican's overwhelming win that year.  I also recall the polls pretty tight just before the 2002 midterm and of course the thugs won handily that year too.  I believe we are in for a good night.  I, too, believe that a win is a win. Of course, we can all hope for a tidal wave.  

The Time poll was LV too. Unless something happened on the 4th that changed everything, then this is just noise as the cons decide the vote.... maybe Haggard did it for them.

Not consistently wrong, just every now and then, or just by a few points. Successful cheaters know not to cheat too often, or too much, or else they'll tip people off and be revealed.

I have absolutely no proof that any of this is happening. It's just that with the stakes so high for the GOP this election, and with their proven reputation for doing whatever it takes to win, you almost have to assume that they'll at least TRY to do this, if it helps tip things their way.

The reasoning behind skewing polls is dual. One, to deceive enough voters into either staying at home or voting GOP, and discourage Democratic GOTV workers and operations, by convincing them that things are a lot tighter than they really are, and thus making the difference in tight races. And two, by making it easier to steal elections by creating the impression that they were tighter than they really were, and thus not likely to have been stolen.

Anything who thought that GOTV only meant Get Out The Vote to the GOP is naive. Their "Plan for Victory" entailed far more than visible and "legitimate" efforts. And I wouldn't at all put it past them to try to skew last-minute polls, and get the cooperation of at least some polling firms. After all, the media's been subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) helping them out, so why not polling firms?

There will be fewer Republicans in Congress after Tuesay. It would be nice if you people (and the MSM) would get that through your thick skulls.