This is irresponsible, but typical of the USA Today.

“Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain by 11 percentage points in the last USA TODAY/Gallup national poll of likely voters before Election Day.

With less than two days to go before polls open, the contenders’ support is estimated to be:

• Obama, 53%.
• McCain, 42%.

Those numbers, released this hour, are based on national surveys of 2,472 likely voters. The interviews were conducted by telephone on Friday, Saturday and today. The margin of error on each figure is +/- 2 percentage points.

Gallup says the group it surveyed is mostly made up of voters who fit its “traditional” model of those likely to show up at the polls. Also among the 2,472 are some who have already voted — including first-timers.

The results are identical to Gallup’s “expanded” pool of likely voters, which adds more first-time voters than the survey firm used in the past.

One other set of numbers to consider: Gallup says that when it allocates the 4% of likely voters who either had no opinion or would not choose between Obama and McCain, it estimates the candidates’ current support levels would most likely be 55% for Obama, 44% for McCain.

Watch USATODAY.com for more about the poll later this evening, and read more about it in tomorrow’s USA TODAY.”

Of course this is misleading. Gallup’s numbers are more telling on their own site where they list the traditional likely voters support for Obama dropping a point today to 51 and McCain’s rising to 43. When you weigh in the other factors McCain is actually rising while Obama is decending.

True there is still a lead, but it’s indisputable that the momentum is shifting to McCain in the last couple of days, which is why I suppose USA Today is in such a hurry to get incorrect numbers out the door.