How depressing. I'm still clinging to the hope that a vastly disproportionate number of Democrats don't have land-lines, thus they're not getting polled, but I fear I'll have to listen to right-wing gloating rather than right-wing shrieking (fraud at the polls!) on Wednesday.

Huh. If I merge the registered and likely voters it seems the dems have a 1% polling lead [?]
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I know fewer and fewer people [me and my daughter for one] that dont have a landline and just use cellular brain cancer devices. =]

Kill Bill - Add five more to your sample size. We have five cell phones on a family plan for my husband, myself and our three adult children, all Democrats. We got rid of the land line as soon as AT&T offered a "dry loop" for DSL service that didn't have to piggyback on the landline in our neighborhood.

All those registered-voter Democrats who are obviously planning not to vote on Tuesday (hence the different poll results with likely voters) will have only themselves to blame come Wednesday morning and they start to realize what they accomplished by doing nothing. Sadly, the rest of us are going to have to live with the results of their lazy ignorance.

"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing."

Hmm, that's eight of us. So I should pick up some Champagne?

I wonder if these polls are also ignoring people who use VOIP (voice over internet (internet phone)) such as Vonage, etc.

I am the owner of about half a dozen phone numbers (Google Voice, cell phones, etc) and not one of them is a traditional land line. My sister-in-law was complaining about all the political robocalls she's been getting - I haven't gotten a single one.

Aside from the obvious benefits to the US and the world of having the Dems retain majorities in both houses, I am desperate to have the pundits and the polls all proven wrong (h/t hells littlest angel).

The entire MSM would have to eat crow for months and I, for one, will be demanding an apology from each and every one of them for writing off the Dems before the election even took place.

Anyone who stays home - Republican or Democrat - should be bitch-slapped for failing to make use a privilege people have literally died for. Given how close past elections have been, there really is no excuse for failing to be counted.

the real problem will be with how this is portrayed as a mandate for the loonies. It will prove Jon Stewart's point about cable news.

i dare bet that if one looked at polling in any midterm election in the last 40 years the difference in political leanings between the "registered" pool and "likely" (or actual voting) pool would show the same 8-10% gap. It has no deeper meaning: it simply has always been the case that those groups that make up the Republican coalition have less drop-off in non-Presidential year participation than the Democratic demographics do.

Add to that a well-established historical track-record of Preidential parties more often than not losing seats in midterms and the tendency for all things to revert to the mean (that is, the Dems presently have historically large majorities) and a Republican sweep on Tuesday will in fact represent nothing special at all -- less mandate than mathematics at work. but that is not how the 24-hour cable punditry will spin it.

Fortunately liberals are too lazy to vote and will probably spend election day blogging in their mother's basement.

Ha @Hells Littlest Angel. I actually started getting interested in the topic of cell phone bias in 2006, and the Boyda-Ryun race in the KS 02 was the one that drove it home for me. Claire McCaskill and a couple of our Missouri ballot initiatives were off, too. Races that had been "too close to call" had several point gaps when the dust settled.

There is my punishment for blogwhoring. I screw up when I try to close the link. Apologies.

"The entire MSM would have to eat crow for months..."

In addition to this, a good showing for the Democrats would intensify the GOP civil war (Tea Baggers vs. The Establishment) and might make corporate America think twice about investing so heavily in the Republican Party. Also (last but not least): it would mean a functioning government for the next 2 years.

No able-bodied registered voter has an excuse to stay home on Tuesday.

Looks like it's time to print up a few "Don't blame me, I voted in the mid-terms" bumper stickers.

"Fortunately liberals are too lazy to vote and will probably spend election day blogging in their mother's basement."

My Mother's Basement is the name of the bar my pals and I will be hanging out at after we go vote. Thanks, Al, for the plug - the first round will include a toast to you.

Yes, Blue Girl, I have the ATT U-Verse [DSL] that uses the land line and their is no need to have telephone service.
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Its ironic that Al spends all day blogging.

@Kiweagle, unfortunately, the media wouldn't eat crow at all. They'd run months of "what went wrong?" analysis, and give unlimited airtime to unsubstantiated right-wing claims of voter fraud. But I could live with that.

Wouldn't having everybody vote-by-mail like Washington state does solve this problem?

It is sad that we have such low participation rates in our democracy- and even sadder that one party wants to keep it that way.

At the same time, most people in America these days turn out at the polls to vote against stuff... and the only thing the Democrats want you to vote against is their crazy opponents- which is pretty weak tea compared to what they should really be running against (hint: who has the money in America today?)

And this gap is why all of us who can need to take election day off and help turn those registered voters into actual voters. Sign up here:

http://www.winningprogressive.org/turn-off-your-computer-%e2%80%93-and-get-out-the-vote-for-the-democrats

Yeah, and at Gregory's trash-fest this morning all they did was quote the LV figures. No hints about all the money flowing into the campaign by shadowy groups, nothing about all the false assumptions ("taxes went up the last couple years", "people who don't buy health insurance going to jail") etc.

Even when they covered Jon Stewart's mixed-bag event they of course quote his gaffy line about how everyone but DC and Media work together every day to get things done - as if business always did everything right and had only the best motives. They showcased perhaps his least defensible line.

GET.OUT.THE.DAMN.VOTE!

I'm sure many of these disgruntled voters are sitting this out out because Obama has "caved" to Republicans, and there is "no difference" between Democrats and Republicans. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (see, e.g., the policy goals of Bush 43, Sharron Angle, Sarah Palin, and Rand Paul), the "both parties are the same" delusion lives on, allowing sane, reasonable Democrats to be picked off by truly bizarre Republicans out to dismantle the social safety net, deny civil rights to American Muslims, and ramp up war in the Middle East. The "both parties are the same" theory is about to be disproved once again.

@hells littlest angel - I really wouldn't care about any pathetic attempts to justify their proclamations of Democratic failure either, just so long as the Dems win.

@ameshall - Remember when Nader said that there was no difference between the parties? He still can't enter a room without people scowling at him.

If Dems do better than expected, it'll all go down to "massive voter fraud"; the rightard SOBs have been preparing the ground for weeks. Screw them.

Meanwhile, back at the farm... We (my husband and I) do have a landline, but we're almost never polled (the last poll asked who I wanted to see as the Repub presidential nominee. Once I said I wanted Obama to be reelected, the connection broke). But both of us will be at the polls.

Our son and his friends -- all Dems, most with just cellphones -- not only are voting but several of them are engaged in the GOTV efforts and/or poll watching (I raised him ... um... left?)

My stepchildren and those of their offspring old enough to vote (all Dems, though some of a purple hue. The younger generation is all cellphone-only) have been put on notice: bring your "I voted" sticker with you next time you show up at the parental homestead, or else.

So, from where I sit, personally, things might be a tad better than what the Wash Po is telling me. But, I have to tell ya... I miss Howard Dean. I'm too old for this see saw of "do nothing for 22 months and then go all out in the last 2". I *much* prefer a steady, year round, plod.

This, by a friend of mine, gives some hope that the races are closer than we think and to drum up the turnout.

More and more I appreciate that we have compulsory voting here in Aus, and that elections are held on Saturdays, as almost everyone can attend without too much hassle.

It's not perfect, but one way or another, every voter counts: as shown by the all but tied vote in our recent Federal election (which had a 93% turn out).

It's your vote: use it.