For a reality check on the voters who will decide the election, I turned to 2,449 interviews that the Diageo/Hotline poll conducted among registered voters nationwide in the first half of September.
• Uncertain about their choice. First, I looked at those who were either completely undecided about which candidate to support (10 percent of the total) or who responded to a follow-up question that they could still change their minds (13 percent).
In many ways, these voters are demographically similar to the rest of the electorate. In terms of gender, race, and education, they are virtually identical to voters who have made a firm decision. They are slightly younger, though: 40 percent are under age 44 (compared with 35 percent of all voters).
White women with less than a college education, who are heralded by some as the "ultimate swing voters," are only 11 percent of these uncertain voters (compared with 9 percent of all registered voters).
Again, slightly fewer than half (43 percent) of these voters are completely undecided, with the rest split almost evenly between Barack Obama (29 percent) and John McCain (28 percent). They tend to be more politically independent (35 percent) and moderate (26 percent) than the electorate as a whole (20 percent independent; 19 percent moderate).
Swing voters' overall ratings of the candidates tend to reflect both their greater political independence and their tendency to be less engaged in political news. Both nominees receive slightly higher favorable ratings and significantly lower unfavorable ratings from swing voters.
But, most important, these voters harbor doubts about the shortcomings they perceive in Obama and in McCain. By a 34-point margin (52 percent to 18 percent), they see McCain as "more prepared to lead the country" than Obama. And by a nearly opposite 31-point margin (50 percent to 21 percent), they say that Obama "better understands the needs and priorities" of people like them.
• Uncertain about voting. More intriguing are those who are still uncertain about whether they will cast a ballot. Within the same Diageo/Hotline tracking survey, we can set aside the 88 percent of registered voters who say they will "definitely vote" in November and focus on the 9 percent (377 interviews) who say they are only probable voters in this year's presidential contest.
They have a more distinctive political and demographic profile than the swing voters. Demographically, they are more likely to be young and less well educated than the electorate as a whole. Nearly half (45 percent) are younger than 44 (compared with 36 percent of all voters); virtually the same proportion (45 percent) have a high school education or less (compared with 28 percent of all voters). Although most are white, the percentage of Latinos (13 percent) is nearly double the percentage of Latinos in the full sample (7 percent).
Voters in this group are more likely to identify themselves as Democrats (41 percent) than as Republicans (24 percent) and to support Obama over McCain (47 percent to 32 percent).
These numbers, which are similar to findings from Gallup and Newsweek/PSRA polls about "unlikely voters," explain why the Obama campaign is investing in getting this hard-to-reach but potentially decisive bloc to the polls.
Mark Blumenthal is National Journal's polling analyst, and editor and publisher of pollster.com
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