Average of 8 polls on the front page of www.pollingreport.com October 14
Bush 47.5% Kerry 46.375 % Nader and others 1.5% If Nader and others holds at 1.5% % one would need to assume that Bush will get 14/37 of votes of undecided voters (38%) to conclude that the point estimate is that the race is exactly tied. The pundits' rule of thumb is that incumbents get around 40% of the votes of the undecided, so the point estimate is that Bush is really ahead by 0.125% with a standard error from sampling alone of 1%.

That's close.