Going into tonight, there was not a single poll showing Hillary with a lead. According to reports, Obama's internal polling had him ahead by 11%. Hillary's polling had Obama ahead by 14%.
As for some of the ideas floating around for why the polls went so wrong.....
In the end there may be no smoking gun. Those polls may have been accurate, but done in by a superior get-out-the-vote effort, or by very late deciders whose motivations may or may not ever be known. They may have been inaccurate because of bad modeling, compromised sampling, or simply an overabundance of enthusiasm for Obama on the heels of his Iowa victory that led his would-be supporters to overstate their propensity to turn out. (A function, perhaps, of youth.)
Prof. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University has another argument: That the order of names on the New Hampshire ballot - in which, by random draw, Clinton was toward the top, Obama at the bottom - netted her about 3 percentage points more than she'd have gotten otherwise. That's not enough to explain the gap in some of the polls, which presumably randomized candidate names, but it might hold part of the answer.
Thinking about this, there are a couple of things that may be at work.
[Empathy]
Coming out of Iowa, Barack Obama got a great bounce, but there were a couple things that happened in the interim that I thought was significant. For one thing, the candidate that seemed "fake" for so long, gave a reason to empathize with her & showed real emotion.
First was Hillary's so-called "angry" moment in the debate. There was a heated moment where she confronted John Edwards over the subject of Change.
To me, I thought this was a great moment for her. She was forceful, seemed like a leader, and showed genuine emotion. But she was criticized by the likes of Jake Tapper of ABC News, and some here for being "angry", with words like "shrill" being used in the media. Whenever someone throws around the word "shrill" about a woman, I always have the same reaction that I have when I hear a white person talking about the "urban" people in the inner city.
The other big moment from that debate was the "likability" question.
I felt so sorry for her, because even though she answered it in a joking way (and got a laugh), you could also tell from the answer that on some level it does bother her the way people feel about her & treat her.
And this leads into what many believe is going to be remembered as the defining moment of the race, and it only happened 24 hours before the election.
This was all over the tube & net on Monday. It has been analyzed, critiqued, and debated. Again, it showed Hillary as a human being and not the caricature that she is presented as in the media. Put simply, you got to see a glimpse of the person that is under that teflon pant suit. Also, I think the people who criticized her & called it "acting" or "fake" may have caused a backlash.
However, according to the exit polls, none of the stuff above really mattered. Among those voters who decided on election day, Hillary only won that group by 3%. For those voters who decided sometime between the last 3 days & last month, Obama mostly won by significant margins.
However, in the same exit poll, the same voters said the debates were important.
[Democrats, Women, Union Households, And Age]
In the election diary I posted the night of the Iowa Caucus, I noted some similarities between the Obama campaign & John McCain's campaign in 2000. Both built a coalition of members of their own party, Independents & some crossover votes from the other party. But in New Hampshire Obama ran into one of the problems McCain had in 2000. If you're going to be your party's nominee, you eventually have to win over members of your party.
In Iowa, Obama only won by 1% among self-described Democrats. In New Hampshire.....
Also present was the gender gap. In Iowa, Obama actually won among women. In New Hampshire, Hillary won by double-digits among women.....
Also interesting is the vote of Union households. When I think of the candidate that has tried the most to win over union support, it's John Edwards. However, Hillary Clinton won union members by 11%, and union households by 6%. In Iowa, she tied Obama among support from Union households.
One thing that has been trumpeted by the media is Obama's appeal to the youth. Obama has strong support & an ability to get young people to come out & vote. However, one thing that hasn't gotten a lot of attention is how badly he's done among older voters in Iowa & New Hampshire. In Iowa, Barack Obama lost the "65 & older" vote by 27%. In New Hampshire, Obama lost the senior vote by 16%. Also, one key difference in New Hampshire is that Hillary did better among those between the ages of 25-39.
[Race?]
Some have been speculating the discrepancy between the pre-election polls might be the result of race. Specifically the "Bradley Effect."
The term Bradley effect or Wilder effect refers to a phenomenon which has led to inaccurate voter opinion polls in some American political campaigns between a white candidate and a non-white candidate. Specifically, there have been instances in which statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either genuinely undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots. White voters who said that they were undecided break in statistically large numbers toward the white candidate, and many of the white voters who said that they were likely to vote for the black candidate ultimately cast their ballot for the white candidate. This reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well. Researchers who have studied the issue theorize that some white voters give inaccurate responses to polling questions because of a fear that they might appear to others to be racially prejudiced.
The original term Bradley effect derives its name from a 1982 campaign involving Tom Bradley, the long-time mayor of Los Angeles, California. Bradley, who was black, ran as the Democratic party's candidate for Governor of California against Republican candidate George Deukmejian, who was white. The polls leading into the day of the election consistently showed Bradley with a lead. However, Bradley narrowly lost the race. Post-election research indicated that a smaller percentage of white voters actually voted for Bradley than that which had said they planned to vote for him, and that voters who had been classified as "undecided" had gone to Deukmejian in statistically anomalous numbers.
Whether it was race or shitty turnout models for the pre-election polls, is something we'll probably never know. One key difference between Iowa & New Hampshire is that the Iowa caucus is done in public. You have to stand in front of your neighbors & friends, and declare your preference. In the NH primary, you go vote behind a curtain.
A couple things though. To the best of my knowledge, the "Bradley Effect" has never really been observed in a primary before, especially a Democratic primary. It usually effects general elections. And both Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick & Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. performed at or above their polling levels in 2006 against white opponents.
Also, in the exit polls Barack Obama actually carried white males in New Hampshire. However, Hillary Clinton carried both white & non-white females by larger margins.
[The "Asshole" Factor]
I've been undecided & torn between supporting Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. I think both of them, & John Edwards too, are good people & great public servants who are a credit to the Democratic party. However, some of their supporters are complete & total assholes, who do their candidates no favors in what they write, say or do. So, for me at least, whenever I start sliding towards one candidate or another, all I have to do is read a diary or comment from said assholes, and it just puts me back into the undecided column. There is a feeling of: "Do I really want to be on the same side as these people?"
Perfect example of "dickish" behavior. Hillary Clinton goes up to shake the hand of Edwards supporters standing next to her supporters at a polling station. I mean common decency would lead most people to be civil. But, you have the rude asshole who shouts in her face. Now is this representative of John Edwards or the large majority of his supporters? Of course not, but it doesn't make me want to go join them either.
Going back to the "backlash" argument, I wonder if there were people in New Hampshire, who couldn't stand the things that were being written & said about Hillary Clinton, and wanted to effectively say "fuck you" to the Chris Matthews of the world?
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