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With two weeks to go, the 5 best places to follow presidential polls
1. Electoral-Vote.com
2. Real Clear Politics

3. FiveThirtyEight
Named after the number of electors in the electoral college, FiveThirtyEight bills itself as "electoral projections done right." It uses a different methodology than the other sites I've mentioned, weighting pollsters according to their historical track records. This is the most detailed of the polling sites, offering a scenario analysis of what would happen with different combinations of swing states. It's also respectable that the creators are transparent about their political affiliations, even though they're just running the numbers. (For the record, they're both voting Obama).
4. NailBite08
NailBite08 is an iPhone web app that serves as a front end for the numbers from Real Clear Politics. It was created by Neven Mrgan as a way to get polling info at a glance when you're on the go. It includes the InTrade Market odds, electoral votes with and without tossup states, and comparative approval ratings of the candidates. This aptly-named app is definitely directed at the political nailbiters amongst us.
5. How Is Obama Doing?
Far from the details provided by sites like RCP and FiveThirtyEight, How Is Obama Doing only tells you two things: how many points Barack Obama is ahead or behind in the popular vote, and how many days are left untll the election.




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They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jack Rejtman said 6:49PM on 10-21-2008
Yahoo News has an electoral map that shows a lot more. At http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard, you can see electoral projections based on RCP Poll Averages and Intrade Prediction Markets, as well as state-by-state trending, headlines, blogs and voter demographics with a cool rollover that shows candidate support by race. You also can create, view and compare scenarios and share them with friends.
As full disclosure, I helped build Yahoo's map. But I haven't yet seen a site that shows as much content and offers as much interaction.
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Jamison said 3:03AM on 10-22-2008
www.intrade.com
People put their money where their mouth is and, generally, the results are accurate.
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phil said 11:20AM on 10-22-2008
RealClearPolitics has some documented issues in cherry-picking polls in order to show trends they prefer. Instead of them, try pollster.com. My top two are fivethirtyeight and pollster.
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Soybean said 11:27AM on 10-22-2008
Seconded pollster. I can't believe you left them out. I'd also drop electoral-vote.com because they only use the most recent 1-3 polls. They're pretty susceptible to outliers.
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mcmichaels@gmail.com said 12:20PM on 10-23-2008
pollster.com and 270towin.com are great sites. 270 is great if you envy John King and want to play around with the electoral map.
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Guy said 3:26PM on 11-25-2008
You need to follow up this post with which site was the accurate-- that would be 538.
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