It's only a guess, but I think Obama must be up to 55% in the polls in order to win. Why? Because people lie to pollsters. Let's examine the following.
1. Most who are called by pollsters resent the interruption in their daily lives. Check the refusal rates on the individual polls. Some give them out, some don't. But they usually run somewhere over seventy per cent.
2. Those who do answer and participate I believe fall into three classifications.
2a. Those who take out their animosity on the pollster by lying.
2b. Those who are embarrassed to admit their racial prejudice. ( the Bradley effect.)
2c. Those who are genuinely interested and respond to the best of their ability.
3. Because polling is done almost exclusively by landline phone, all those many who use only a cell phone are missing.
4. Most pollsters have computer programs that supposedly factor in these problems, but I wonder just how effective they are.
There have been many examples of the pollsters being wrong. Just think of the 2000 election. How many times did they change their projection on Florida? And I don't trust exit polls for many of the same reasons listed above.
Therefore, I would think that Obama must be up enough to compensate on election day. Yes, the cell users are a plus generally for Obama. I believe I have heard estimates of approximately seventy per cent favoring Obama. But, being born and raised in Missouri, I refuse to underestimate the race factor. True, I think it is most prevalent among the over forty age group, but I have heard young people express those racist opinions also. Unfortunately it will take more than one or two generations to completely stamp out racial bigotry.
So my guess is that Obama must be up to at least 55 per cent in the polls on this election season's penultimate day. If this is the case I think he will win. However, I certainly am no better a predictor than any of these organizations. It's just one man's guess.