The New CBS News / New York Times poll "falls outside the range" of where the race is now, a senior McCain official said tonight.
Asked to respond to the poll, which gives Barack Obama a a 14 point lead among likely voter, the official said via e-mail that the sub-group shifts it showed were improbably large.
"My sense is if they repeated this poll again tonight or tomorrow, they would show the race in the same five to eight point margin as do other national polls as the margins with Independents would not be so dramatic and the white vote would be closer to other national polling during this time period," the official said.On Oct. 1, the poll showed independents voting for Sen. Obama by five points; on Oct. 6, Sen. McCain was winning them by ten points, and six days later, Obama was back ahead by 18 points.
"Independent voters DO move, but not from +10% to -18% in one week," the official wrote. ... "[A]and not when other pollsters are not seeing that type of extraordinary movement among these voters."
"Finally, and it is probably just a typo, they report interviewing more Republicans than Democrats. The numbers are most likely reversed in the questionnaire," the official said.
The CBS News / NYT team stands by their poll, and many other polls (Gallup, ABC News/Washington Post) are picking up similar shifts in sentiment, although the volatility in some of the subgroups -- remember, the sample size is smaller for them -- is not as apparent.
More later...
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