Politics: Is the LA Times/USC Poll On Target or an Outlier?

Polling .... sometimes they are right on and other times they miss.

LAT/USC released a poll showing Brown ahead of Whitman and Boxer ahead of Fiorina and by fairly wide margins. The Los Angeles Times is a well known lefty paper so it will tend to trumpet this kind of news. But the question is simply this: is the poll "correct?"

Perhaps, however, when compared to other polls, the LAT/USC Boxer lead is much larger (8 points) than other polls out there (average 2.5 points as of 10/25, 1pm). Likewise, the Brown/Whitman race shows less of a Brown lead in other polls (6.2 average vs 13 as of 10/25, 1pm).

Thus, the LAT/USC poll (show 2-3 times larger margins than other polls) is either picking up a trend not detected up by other polls or it is flawed in some aspect of its design.

Clearly, Whitman and Fiorina always had an uphill battle to win in a deep blue Democrat state like California and in the end it might be too much to overcome but this LAT/USC poll might be an outlier and Brown/Boxer supports shouldn't get cocky nor Whitman/Fiorina backers toss in the towel.