Once again the polls published before the New Hampshire primary demonstrated the difficulty of forecasting a primary. For most of his career George Gallup shunned pre-primary polling. Wise man! The problems are almost insurmountable.
Mystery Pollster has more on how large polling error of this sort is not unprecedented, especially in the New Hampshire primary. Really, with the myriad of explanations flying around as to why the polls were wrong, including my own explanations, perhaps the simplest reason is the correct one: it is just as difficult to poll primaries as it ever was. Primaries are much more difficult to poll than general elections for many reasons, and as time goes on we don't appear any closer to solving the problems associated with polling primaries.
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