Could the polls be wrong?

Few analysts outside the McCain campaign appear to share this view. And pollsters this time around will not make the mistake that the Gallup organisation made 60 years ago 8212; ending their polling more than a week before the election and missing a last-minute surge in support for Truman. Every day brings dozens of new state and national presidential polls, a trend that is expected to continue up to Election Day.

Still, there appears to be an undercurrent of worry among some polling professionals and academics. One reason is the wide variation in Obama leads: On Tuesday, an array of polls showed the Democrat leading by as little as two points and as much as 15 points. The latest Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll showed the race holding steady, with Obama enjoying a lead of 52 per cent to 45 per cent among likely voters.

Some in the McCain camp also argue that the polls showing the largest leads for Obama mistakenly assume that turnout among young voters and African Americans will be disproportionately high. The campaign is banking on a good turnout among GOP partisans, whom McCain officials say they are working hard to attract to the polls.

8220;I have been wondering for weeks8221; whether the polls are accurately gauging the state of the race, said Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College in Minnesota. Borrowing from lingo popularised by former defence secretary Donald H Rumsfeld, Schier asked what are the 8220;unknown unknowns8221; about polling this year: For instance, is the sizable cohort of people who don8217;t respond to pollsters more Republican-leaning this year, perhaps because they don8217;t want to admit to a pollster that they are not supporting the 8220;voguish8221; Obama?

If so, that could mean the polls are routinely understating McCain8217;s support. 8220;I have no evidence that this is happening,8221; Schier said, but he added: 8220;I8217;m still thinking there8217;s a 25 per cent chance that this is a squeaker race and McCain pulls it out.8221;

Other experts are less uncertain. Ruy Teixeira, a political demographer at the Center for American Progress and the Century Foundation, said averaging the daily polls points to 8220;pretty much the same thing 8212; that the race is pretty stable and that Obama has a stable lead. Typically, when you are this far ahead at this point, it8217;s hard to lose.8221;

8220;It is very unlikely that we are going to get surprised by a last-minute movement,8221; said John R Petrocik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Missouri. 8220;Obama has been running six to eight points ahead for the better part of two weeks, and it8217;s hard to imagine that turning around.8221;

The McCain campaign8217;s case that the race is closer than many polls suggest appears to rest largely on the proposition that the composition of the electorate this year will closely resemble that in 2004.

McCain pollsters do anticipate that turnout could be even higher this year than the robust turnout four years ago, but they also expect that Democratic gains among African American voters and younger voters will be offset by higher turnout among more Republican-leaning voters. They also assert the race is tightening in battleground states, with independent voters increasingly receptive to McCain.