Prediction is Difficult, Especially the Future

My second hat at AOL is development manager for the AOL Polls system. This means I've had the pleasure of watching the conventions and debates in real time while sitting on conference calls watching the performance of our instant polling systems. Which had some potential issues, but which, after a lot of work, seem to be just fine now. Anyway: The interesting thing about the instant polling during the debates was how different the results were from the conventional instant phone polls. For example, after the final debate the AOL Instapoll respondents gave the debate win to Kerry by something like 60% to 40%. The ABC news poll was more like 50%/50%. Frankly, I don't believe any of these polls. However, I'll throw this thought out: The online insta polls are taken by a self selected group of people who are interested in the election and care about making their opinions known. Hmmm... much like the polls being conducted tomorrow.
I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction based on the various poll results and on a lot of guesswork: Kerry will win the popular vote by a significant margin. And, he'll win at least half of the "battleground" states by a margin larger than the last polls show. But, I make no predictions about what hijinks might ensue in the Electoral College.

Update 11/11: Well, maybe not...