Individual poll results don't mean much. The "margin of error" they all cite only means a 95% confidence interval. That means that the error is worse than stated 5% of the time, or once in 20 outings. There are more than 80 national polling organizations, so we can expect maybe four of them to be more wrong than they say on a given day. If we knew which four, that wouldn't be a problem, but by definition we don't.

If you want to extract usable information (or "actionable intelligence") from polling data, the first thing you have to do is look at them all, day by day, for months. The following sites do that for you, and run additional statistical tests that they explain in plain language. Some highlights:

• Pollsters.com lets you create your own charts using their data. They also offer state-by-state graphs.
• 3bluedudes.com shows you all of the Electoral College polls day by day, and gives the averages for that day, the last two days, and all of the most recent results per poll together. McCain has never led in the EC averages. They also show all the polls in Senate races.
  
• fivethirtyeight.com has a chart showing the average of the popular vote polls day by day since January. You can clearly see the McCain-Palin convention bounce, and also how much they have slid since then. (The name comes from the 538 votes in the Electoral College.) They list polls state by state and nationally.
  

The other big question is how close the Democrats can get to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (60 or more, including Independents). Projections have been running around 58. Al Franken has moved ahead in MN. Three previously Red state Senate races looked like tossups for a while: KY, GA, MS. Winning all of those would have put the Dems over, to the point where they could consider dumping Lieberman. On the morning of Election Day, they appear to be out of reach.

Daily data

From 3BlueDudes.com, daily munch of all Electoral College analysis updates. A ratio of 2:1 or better in the EC (359-179) is commonly considered a landslide. The latest values for all polls reported since October 8 have Obama with the 270 Electoral College votes for a win, except one die-hard Republican site that is considered a joke.

We don't get final totals on Election Day. Some races are too close to call within a day, and in some cases there will be runoff elections later, as in the Georgia Senate race. South Carolina, Missouri, and one Electoral vote in Nebraska remain undecided on Nov. 5.

Date	Obama	McCain	Tossup	Lead	Ratio
11/6	364	162	12	187	2.15
IT'S OVER!	338	156	44	182	2.16
11/3	351	187	0	164	1.87
11/2	332	171	35	161	1.94
11/1	344	179	15	165	1.92
10/31	345	174	19	170	1.98
10/30	333	166	39	159	2.00
10/29	347	171	20	177	2.04
10/28	353	171	14	182	2.07
10/27	341	175	22	166	1.94
10/26	351	158	29	193	2.22
10/25	346	167	25	179	2.07
10/24	336	173	29	163	1.94
10/23	344	174	20	170	1.97
10/22	329	177	32	152	1.85
10/21	334	177	28	158	1.90

Normally, races tighten towards the finish. Nobody knows whether that will be true this time, because Obama has the best ground game ever, and because many polls underestimate first-time turnout, which is expected to be larger than ever. Go help phone-bank to Get Out The early Vote (GOTV), and volunteer on Election Day for GOTV, as a poll watcher, or something. Don't forget the New Hampshire primary debacle, as Obama himself recently reminded us.