the final gallup polls

Now, I have gone on and on about a couple of things when it comes to polling in this election: the republican skew of most of the polling companies (especially Gallup) and the opinion that Kerry will ultimately win the popular vote by about 5% (which almost must translate to an electoral win given the closeness of most states). I would like to point out that Gallup has released it's final pre-election polling numbers. The registered voter numbers (I will not use Gallup's "likely voter" numbers because they're wrong...though they tend to lead to a one-point gain on any of these numbers for Bush) look very good for Kerry:

Kerry is winning in Florida by 4%,
Bush winning in Iowa by 1%*,
Kerry winning in Minnesote by 8%,
Kerry winning in Ohio by 7%,
Kerry winning in Pennsylvania by 2%*, and
Bush winning in Wisconsin by 3%*.
* within the 3% +/- margin of error

This would suggest that Kerry will win the red states of Florida and Ohio and may only lose the blue states of Iowa and Wisconsin. That's a huge net gain in electoral votes for him, big enough to win the electoral vote easily.

As for the overall results:

Using voting behavior data from previous elections, the Gallup organization attempted to estimate how the undecideds would vote Tuesday.

The result was a tie of 49 percent each for Bush and Kerry, with 1 percent for Nader and 1 percent for other candidates.

In the history of polling, Gallup has never come out with a tied race in its final pre-election estimate -- just one more footnote for the history books in a history-making campaign.

And for reference, Gallup's last poll in 2000 had Bush leading by 7%...which was a whole 7.5% off come election day.

If I am at all right about how off these polls are, election night will be over by 11 o'clock and I'll be able to get to bed at a decent hour, knowing that Bush is getting the hell out of Washington soon.