Five Thirty Eight's and the New York Times' Nate Silver has been looking at the latest CNN poll.
CNN’s latest national poll, released on Friday, contained a mix of good, bad and indifferent news for each candidate.
The good news for Barack Obama? Among registered voters, he led Mitt Romney by nine percentage points, with 52 percent of the vote to Mr. Romney’s 43 percent. ...Nate Silver, 538
What's the problem?
However, Mr. Obama led by just two percentage points, 49 to 47, when CNN applied its likely voter screen to the survey. This is the first time this year that CNN has reported likely voter results.
Holding a two-point lead among likely voters is not an especially bad (or good) number for Mr. Obama, since it is highly consistent with the way that our forecast sees the overall race right now.
What’s worrisome for him, rather, is the large gap in the poll — seven points — between the likely voter and registered voter results....
... The seven-point difference that CNN had is not typical. But we’ve been tracking these results whenever state and national polls report them, and the median difference between registered voter and likely voter results has been about three points so far in Mr. Romney’s favor — about twice as large as the historical average....Nate Silver, 538
Much depends on turnout. As it always does. And Obama is still substantially ahead in the electoral college count -- looking at all the polls.
The model now gives him a 69.3 percent chance of winning it, up from 66.7 percent on Wednesday. There’s also been a tiny shift back toward Mr. Obama in the national tracking polls, with Gallup now showing the race tied, and Rasmussen Reports putting Mr. Obama one point ahead as of Saturday. ...Nate Silver, 538
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