I don't care if they are professional pollsters, anyone who talks about a candidate's chances of winning in the general presidential election who does not mention the electoral map does not know what they are talking about. The race is not for people's votes, it's for electoral votes.
That drove me crazy in the last Presidential campaign when the reports about the race ping-ponged between reports that Romney was ahead and Obama was ahead, citing polls about the popular vote. But if you looked at the state polls and used a model that counted the electoral votes Romney never was ahead. The story that emerged from the polls in the last presidential election should have been how, notwithstanding the closeness of the popular vote, the electoral map made it almost impossible for the Republican candidate to win. But that was not the story that was largely reported. The only really shocking thing about the last presidential election was how shocked Romney was that he lost the election when that was what all the polls that weren't "unskewed" said would happen all along.
That drove me crazy in the last Presidential campaign when the reports about the race ping-ponged between reports that Romney was ahead and Obama was ahead, citing polls about the popular vote. But if you looked at the state polls and used a model that counted the electoral votes Romney never was ahead. The story that emerged from the polls in the last presidential election should have been how, notwithstanding the closeness of the popular vote, the electoral map made it almost impossible for the Republican candidate to win. But that was not the story that was largely reported. The only really shocking thing about the last presidential election was how shocked Romney was that he lost the election when that was what all the polls that weren't "unskewed" said would happen all along.
