Found in 5 seconds: "Gallup Daily: Obama-McCain Race Reverts to Virtual Tie"

Found in another 5 seconds: "National Poll Shows Bush, Kerry in Virtual Tie"

I could go on.

That Gallup poll is from June. The race was a virtual tie then. November reporting is a different story.

And Bush/Kerry was also pretty damned close. Not one of the races I was referring to.

That's just the one I found in 5 seconds. This one's from mid-August 2008: "New [LA Times/Bloomberg] poll shows McCain - Obama in virtual tie". And from Sept: "[NBC News/Wall Street Journal] Poll shows Obama and McCain in virtual tie". 3 months later, still a virtual tie! I'm sure I could find a closer one. I didn't say the media would always report that in November.

I went back to 1992 and still found "virtual tie" reports. That's 5 elections in a row.