JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Joining us now is John Zogby, who’s the president of Zogby International as well as the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. John, we keep meeting every four years.

JOHN ZOGBY:

Every four years.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

How does that work?

JOHN ZOGBY:

[LAUGHS]

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

So let me know what the national poll is as you’re seeing it at this point between Barack Obama and John McCain. One network says the race is tightening. Other networks say the lead by Barack Obama is consolidating. What do you say?

JOHN ZOGBY:

I have Obama increasing his lead. I published my final numbers at 1 o'clock in the morning – 54 to 43. That’s the biggest lead that I've had for him. He had reached a 12-point lead actually a couple of weeks ago; then it dissipated.

But in the end, he seems to have consolidated a big lead among independents and done very well with all age groups under 50, with women, and really with the Democratic base.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Have you had to change your sample at all because of the unusual circumstances in this election?

JOHN ZOGBY:

None whatsoever. We set out early, and it did increase the representation of African-Americans by a point-and-a-half and by Hispanics by a full point and by young people by a point. And other than that, they never changed right through the spring, the summer and the fall. Let me tell you one other thing. You heard the number 54 to 43.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Right.

JOHN ZOGBY:

I've been polling now since 2000 for The Weekly Reader, which is the little magazine that’s distributed to elementary and -

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Hey, little? What are you talking little? It’s The New York Times of elementary school. Come on!

JOHN ZOGBY:

The very big -

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Yes. Huge!

JOHN ZOGBY:

- newspaper - [LAUGHS] - it is huge – been polling their students. They never get it wrong. And last week we published the numbers. The kids had Obama leading by 55 to 43. My final number’s likely voters 54 to 43. Kind of remarkable.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Now, with all of the turnout expected to be, you know, record-breaking in battleground states and in states that really aren't in contention, what’s going to surprise you tonight? What would be a total blow-away in terms of where individual states go?

JOHN ZOGBY:

I'm not sure that anything would surprise me. Right now I have Obama comfortably leading with 311 electoral votes. The only three states that remain purple are North Carolina and Florida, where Obama leads by just a point – too close to call – and Missouri, where it’s tied to the 10th of a point.

If Obama sweeps those three – that’s 74 electoral votes – he could conceivably walk away in the evening with 385. That’s a big, big victory.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Now, early, this sort of early closing showcase, you know, the show around 7 o'clock, is going to be the state of Indiana, which has that split between the Eastern Time Zone and the Central Time Zone, where Gary reports late. What should we be watching in Indiana?

JOHN ZOGBY:

Well, it’s been close. Frankly, I do have McCain leading by five, so I've kept it red. But if for some reason Obama’s big turnout among college students and then African-Americans in the North – if Obama is able to make Indiana a victory, then that means he’s won in a whole lot of other places, then, throughout the country. So Indiana’s worth watching.

I think Virginia is well worth watching, and even more, because to me, that’s the symbolic state of this round. I had suggested eight years ago to watch Florida and four years ago to watch Ohio, but I've been saying for a few years now that Virginia’s the bellwether for this year.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

Finally, you know, in talking to people who are either fanatical Obama supporters or even demographers who observe this so-called Bradley effect, there's a kind of a folksy wisdom that a 10-percent margin for Barack Obama is really the only guarantee of fighting the so-called Bradley effect if race is an issue once those curtains are closed in the polling booth. How does a pollster like John Zogby deal with that sort of phenomenon?

JOHN ZOGBY:

This year we're not projecting any Bradley effect whatsoever. We've asked a lot of questions on race and about rationale for voting. It’s debatable now, we learn, whether there was even a Bradley effect when Tom Bradley won, and that his internal polls were wrong.

And so, frankly, I think we're down to the level of what you see is what you get. What you hear is the vote that you’re going to get. And so I'm going to stick with my guns on this one and say it'll be a pure straight-out vote.

Sadly, there are people who will not vote for Barack Obama because he’s an African-American. But we don't sense that there are people who say they're going to vote for him but really aren't.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

All right. Well, John Zogby, an exciting campaign, and you've been polling all through it. Thanks so much for joining us.

JOHN ZOGBY:

My pleasure, good to talk to you.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:

The one and only John Zogby - president and CEO of Zogby International, the international pollster.