Why do you think Gallup is so far from the other polls? Gallup has Romney up by 7 points. here's the ....?

Gallup and rasmussen are most often farther right than the other polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/presi...

Gallup uses a set of seven questions to determine which respondents are likely to actually vote. One of them is the straightforward "are you going to vote" but there are six others that try to capture past behavior to assess whether a person who says "yes" really means it. The lead Gallup reported is the lead among "likely voters."

But ... and here's the tricky question, and I have no idea of the answer ... did Gallup's sample include "likely voters in swing states" or did it overweight "likely voters in already-Romney states?" To be perfectly honest, the idea that Romney has a 7-point lead in the popular vote is a little absurd. But he certainly has a lead that strong in many states.

Ask again in a week. If Gallup still has a wide lead, then it becomes a question of who has the best model for converting the raw data into the published numbers. If not, then you just had a one or two day statistical anomoly (the reason that polls have only a 95% confidence rate at their margin of error, random choice does not alway balance out) in their tracking poll (which takes seven days worht of results and averages them together) that has worked its way out of the system.

EDIT:

Apparently part of the difference between the results in Gallup and other polls is the model of the voting universe. Gallup is estimating a lower percentage of minority voters than some other polls. As noted above, since we do not have 100% voter participation in this country, the ultimate issue is who has the best model of what the actual voter universe will be -- something that we will not know until election day.

I think they are changing their approach to polling in the last couple of weeks to likely voters as some have already alluded to. No pollster wants to look foolish in the days leading up to the election, watch other pollsters do the same thing in the next few days as they try to more closely match the actual tally on election day. I think Obama is slipping and the truth probably lies somewhere between "even" and up 7 points. There is an increasing acknowledgement that Obama is in serious trouble and Beckel is honest enough to admit it.

Gallup uses an unweighted likely voter model (they switch to their likely voter model about a month before the election).

At this point in the election cycle, all of the pollsters are switching to likely voter models and tuning their weighting. Weighting makes sense when you're polling registered voters or even just adults as way to adjust for who's actually going to show up at the polls; it makes a lot less sense when you're polling likely voters (assuming your likely voter model is good).

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Likely voters is he key term.

If kids with no idea what is happening and rabble are energized to vote then the margin would be greatly different.

Those with hands extended and who are otherwise nonparticipants in life rarely vote.

i'd like to watch rush limbaugh and view gallup, but i live in a place called reality. they piss me off and rush is going to die of a heart attack, that fat beast. most media leans toward the left, gallup leans toward the right. if obama wins ohio and iowa, it's a lock that he wins. if he loses one, he needs to make up some other state.

Interesting Facts about Romney:

After high school, he spent about 30 months in France as an unpaid missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and had to pay for his own room and board.

He was an unpaid volunteer campaign worker for his dad's gubernatorial campaign 1 year. He was an unpaid intern in his dad’s governor’s office for eight years.

After graduating from both Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School simultaneously, he passed the Michigan bar but never worked as an attorney.

In 1984, he co-founded Bain Capital a private equity investment firm.

Under his leadership, Bain Capital, starting with one small office supply store in Massachusetts, turned it into Staples; now over 2,000 stores employing 90,000 people.

He also worked to perform the same kinds of business miracles again and again, with companies like Domino's Pizza, Sealy, Brookstone, Weather Channel, Burger King, Monsanto, Burlington, Warner Music Group, Dollarama, Home Depot Supply, Sports Authority, Steel Dynamics (SDI) which has since grown to become the fifth-largest U.S. producer of carbon-steel products, and many other successful companies. It is more profitable to have a company worth more than less… Yes, he could not save a few who were too deep in difficulties.

Romney “outsourcing” has been debunked by Factcheck, Washington Post, and Yahoo News.

He gave his entire inheritance from his father to charity.

In 1994, he ran for Senator of Massachusetts and lost to Ted Kennedy.

He took a 1 dollar salary while helping save the 2002 Winter Olympic Games financially.

He was an unpaid bishop and stake president of his church for about 12 years giving voluntary service of at least 20 or more hours each week for that entire time frame.

In 2002, he was elected Governor of the State of Massachusetts where he eliminated a 1.5 billion deficit.

He took no salary and was the unpaid Governor of Massachusetts for four years.

In 2008, Romney and his wife, Ann, were awarded the Becket Fund's prestigious Canterbury Medal for "Courage in the Defense of Religious Liberty”.

Romney has released his full Tax returns for 2011 and 2010 — and a summary of his federal tax payments since 1990. The Romneys paid state and federal taxes in each of the last 20 years; their effective tax rate in 2011 was 14.1 percent. From a summary prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers they know the couple’s average annual effective federal tax rate from 1990 to 2009 was 20.20 percent.

gallup does not weigh responses