Here’s an email that confirms my view of how well Edwards did with swing voters:
If you do some simple math, you can figure out that your instinct about the ABC news poll is right. Because the 38% in the sample who were Republicans gave it overwhelmingly to Cheney, with only a few Repubs calling it a draw, and because a substantial plurality of Democracts called it a draw (approx 30%), you can figure out how the 32 percent of the sample who were independents must have called it. On my math, it comes out approximately 43 for Edwards, 34 for Cheney, and 23 a draw. That puts the ABC poll figures for independents awfully close to the CBS poll for uncommiteds.
Exactly. The Republican base saw the election slipping away last Thursday. They needed a win and they convinced themselves they had one. But Edwards directed his answers to the undecideds. And, unless the pro-Cheney spin gets deafening, he scored big.
CORRECTION: The reader is wrong. The ABC poll shows independents favoring Cheney 42 – 37 percent.
The Dish 