The Drama Principle:
Q: What do you get when you combine the Feiler Faster Thesis (voters are comfortable processing info quickly) with the Theory of the Two Electorates (the mass of voters who don't follow politics are less informed than they used to be and only tune in at the last minute) with the 50-50 Forever theory (elections will be close from here on out as competing parties and candidates continually adjust to please 51% of the voters--and the ideological and institutional barriers to this adjustment dissolve)?
A: You get elections that are a) close but b) might not look close three, two, or even one day before the vote. Typically, one candidate A will be ahead, but Candidate B will start surging, or A will start collapsing. with startling rapidity as the late-tuning electorate rushes to rapidly learn about the race just in time to vote. Candidate B will look like he or she is, yes, racing against the clock! But that could be deceptive. It could not be so much that voters are changing their minds from A to B--if B only had two more days B would win!--so much as that they are all making up their minds once and for all, in quite orderly fashion, but only doing this at the very end (if B had two more days it wouldn't make a difference).
Daily tracking polls that end on Monday might not be good enough in this situation. You'd need hourly tracking polls that start on Monday morning. ... We do seem to be seeing a lot of last minute surges and surprises lately, no?
http://www.slate.com/id/2182933/
