(See last week’s Data Dump)


This is a summary of the gender, age and ethnicity crosstabs from the polls. The chart above tallies the crosstabs from the state polls, while the graphs below are derived from a daily average of the national poll crosstabs. When combined, these give us a good idea of the national picture, or the popular vote, and how it could change with projected increases in voter turnout for certain demographic groups, such as young voters, minority voters and female voters.

The overall Popular Vote total from the state polls shows Barack Obama leading John McCain by 6.8%, or 51.0% to 44.2% (see the blue widget at the top of this post). But when we look at the state poll crosstabs for gender, the popular vote changes to a lead of 7.0% for Obama (up from 6.4% last week). The state poll crosstabs for age show a lead of 6.6% for Obama (up from 5.8% last week), and the state poll crosstabs for ethnicity put Obama’s lead at 7.1% (up from 6.7% last week) nationwide.

As the National Poll Widget below shows, Obama’s nationwide lead is +8.7% on average, or 1.9 points above what the state polls show for the popular vote (Obama +6.8%, see blue widget above). The national poll lead of Obama +8.7% is most similar to the lead Obama is seeing in the state poll crosstabs for ethnicity (Obama +7.1%, see blue widget above). In an ideal statistical world, these results would all be the same.





The differences in Obama’s lead between demographics have gotten smaller as the pollsters begin to use updated voter registration numbers and turnout probabilities. The range between Obama +6.6% (age demographics in the blue widget above) and Obama +7.1% (ethnic demographics) is only 0.5%, the smallest it has been this year. These small differences can be chalked up to poll noise and rounding, or it could mean that the pollsters are still a little behind in projecting turnout by age groups.

The widget below is a quick summary of where all the demographics currently stand. The graphs following show these statistics over time.







GENDER CROSSTABS













ETHNICITY CROSSTABS















AGE CROSSTABS






































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