Is the race close?

The McCain camp keeps claiming that the polls are close and even people I've spoken with keep saying the polls are tight. Other than Matt Drudge and Rick Davis, who still thinks this? On the state level--which is the one that counts--Obama has been ahead in both the polls and the electoral count for quite some time. Unless the McCain campaign has some internals that somehow contradict the bulk of the public polls, this simply isn't true.

The question isn't whether the polls are close but whether the polls are an accurate sample of the electorate. This is where any uncertainty lies. The main problem I see? Polls are undersampling certain demographics. Pollsters rely on past turnout counts to create their samples for this election cycle. But as we know, this election looks and feels different on a number of fronts. Here are just a few:

1. Youth vote. The 18-24 demographics has traditionally low turnout numbers but this year may be different given Obama's tremendous appeal to this age group. If pollsters use 2004 figures, they may be undersampling this age group and thus undersampling Obama supporters.
2. African American vote. Although traditionally a demographic with high turnout, this year the numbers should be off the scale. Some are going as far as predicting 100% African American turnout in some precincts. This may be an overstatement but even a 10% increase would help tip the scales in Obama's direction.
3. Democratic vote. Of all the demographics, isn't this one something we're pretty sure about? Not really. Not all states require registration by party and we're finding more self-declared Democrats than in past years (likely due to the record of the current Republican administration). Again though, a good pollster will try and weight a sample to reflect the current R/D breakdown. Using 2004 party i.d. will undersample Democrats.
4. Cell phone users. A perennial question since most pollsters don't call cell phones. The assumption would be that these would be younger voters but that's not always accurate (and probably less so in the last 4 years.) And in 2004, waiting for these cell voter users to turn up at the poll was like waiting for Godot for the Dems.
5. GOTV efforts. Republicans have had strong get out the vote efforts in the past few years, particularly among the value-voters. Will the Palin pick get these troops motivated to knock on doors or has McCain failed to tap into these core volunteers? And what about Obama's grassroots organizations, buoyed by the long primary? It's untested but worked for him once. Will it work again?

Most of these factors would seem to favor Obama but if or how much will only become clear after the 4th. Perhaps that's why the Obama camp is trying to run up the numbers--if they're ahead and some of these factors don't break their way, they have plenty of cushion.