Everyone knows electoral college votes decides the winner of a presidential election.

According to the Gallup poll Mitt Romney leads President Obama by 7 points among “likely voters,” but “according to both Nate Silver and InTrade, President Obama has a better-than-60-percent chance of winning the election.”

Despite Gallup’s numbers, other polls show Obama comfortably in the lead in battleground states such as Iowa that will decide the election.

According to Ezra Klein, “Obama is winning the West (+6), the East (+4), and the Midwest (+4). The only region he’s losing is the South.

Klein caught up with Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup, and asked him about the logic behind the Gallup poll results.

Klein asked Newport to explain the “likely voters” model.

“The likely voters model takes into account changes in the response to questions about how closely they’re following and how enthusiastic they are,” Newport said. “It’s not just capturing underlying movement — it’s representing changes in enthusiasm.”

So, in other words, the Gallup poll is based on the “enthusiasm” of the person being polled.


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