Guys: In Biden’s words, you’d better gird your loins.

There is now a growing possibility that McCain could win this election in a surprising upset. Is Obama still the favorite to win? Absolutely. But the odds have diminished remarkably in the past few days. There is a trend that the mainstream media — for whatever reason — is simply choosing to ignore. In some polls released today, Obama’s leads are now within the margin of error in NV, CO and VA. McCain has taken the lead in OH, MO and NC. And PA, where Obama had a double-digit lead only 2 weeks ago, has now been reduced to a 4 point Obama lead. This can only mean that independents and undecideds (of which there are still between 6-8%) are breaking for McCain.

How accurate are these polls? Who knows? But what’s important to notice here is that there has been a sudden, last-minute trend AWAY from Obama in some polls. A week ago, there was no such trend in any of these polls. It is still unknown whether it will be sufficient to tip the balance in McCain’s favor on Tuesday.

Let’s not forget that leads within the margin of error are really not leads at all; they are statistical ties. And significantly, most of Obama’s leads in the key battleground states are within the margin of error. The polling methodology is also critical, and most polls conducted by private, independent research firms are now raising Democratic party ID in order to reflect (a) an unprecedented Democrat turnout; (b) a surge in youth turnout and (c) 90% Democratic support for Obama. If any of those assumptions fall short, this race could change in an instant. I frankly believe that the bitter Hillary (so-called PUMAs) factor has been greatly overlooked by pollsters. I believe it’s unrealistic to think that Obama is going to get 90% of the Dem vote considering that PUMAs represent more than 25% or 5 million of Hillary’s voters. And as I have explained in other posts, the Democrats’ push for early voting in several states has not led to either a high youth turnout or substantial leads for Obama. Rachel Maddow even lamented the dismal youth turnout on her blog this weekend. Lastly, there has been a refusal rate of as high as 80% reported by many pollsters in this election. This is very unusual. Think of it this way: 8 out of every 10 people polled simply refuse to participate in the poll. So ask yourself: how accurate does that make the poll sampling? Another interesting fact I read in a study released October 30 that might explain why exit polls for Kerry predicted a win in 2004 when he eventually lost: Obama supporters are 17% more likely to participate in exit polling than McCain supporters.

I suspect that the campaigns’ internal polls are also telling a very different story than what we are being told by Gallup, Rasumssen and Zogby. If Obama had a solid, comfortable lead in PA, for example, he wouldn’t have spent so much of the last week there, and McCain wouldn’t be camped out there, either. Sure, PA is a must-win for McCain, but so are OH and FL, and he’s not spending nearly as much time in either of those two states. Does it make more sense for McCain to defend dead-heat states that have traditionally gone GOP, or to spend an inordinate amount of time in PA, a state that has traditionally gone Democrat and that Obama has locked up? Logically, it stands to reason that McCain feels more comfortable in FL and OH than the media (or pollsters) realize or acknowledge. And it also stands to reason that if Obama had PA locked up, as the mainstream media would have us believe, he would be spending more time in dead-heat states that he is trying to take from the GOP, like NC and GA. And he wouldn’t have brought Bill Clinton and Howard Dean into PA for a blitzkrieg. Obama even made a high-profile to return to IA, a state that everyone assumes is locked up. Why return to this state within days of the election? It makes about as much sense as Obama returning to NY or CA.

As I’ve said before, it may be a little premature to start doing victory laps here.
I’m not trying to start a partisan fight here. I’m just trying to shed some light on facts that aren’t being highlighted, so if McCain does win, there will be some foundation. If the trend continues, McCain may not have to steal this election to secure a victory. Don’t be surprised if there is a surprise. The pundits’ heads may be swimming from the blow, but if they paid attention to the trend here, they would be admitting that this election is by no means locked up for Obama.