We should not send Bob Sununu back to Washington. Schaffer has blindly supported the failed Bush economic doctrine of tax breaks for Wall Street, and reckless deregulation that has gotten us into our current mess.
Bob has done a "heckuva" job at taking care of Wall Street, while neglecting Main Street. He's also voted with Bush 90% of the time. How many times has he voted with the citizens of New Hampshire?
New Hampshire's main streets need a friend in Washington, but it's not Bob Sununu.
Here are a few items for a fine Wednesday evening:
Two new national polls, from NBC and CBS, both show Obama up by 3%, down from 6% in both a couple weeks ago. Obama continues to lead, but McCain continues to catch up.
"If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.
That's cool. Although, I do wonder about single payer sometimes. I mean, France isn't single payer, and they have just about the best system in the world (not to mention a lot of private, supplemental insurance), so it isn't exactly the end-all, be-all of good health care systems.
QUESTIONER: If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.
[Appaluse]
MCCAIN: Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.
No matter the context, a competent, properly vicious, attack minded Democratic campaign would go after McCain hard for this.
Speaking of attacks, during the Democratic national convention, just about every speaker should mercilessly attack Republicans for their convention themes: peace, prosperity and reform. That is just bald face lying, and it needs to be called such. It needs that these are the three things that have been most lacking under Republican governance. Republicans brought us nothing but war, corruption, and an erosion of our national wealth. And, to boot, they continue to lie about it, by claiming they are bringing the opposite. During the convention, Democrats must hammer this home by directly, repeatedly attacking Republicans for their convention themes. Do it.
I have been very spotty on checking my email over the last few days. I just don't want to do it all the time anymore. Weren't there times in our lives when people would call other people if they had something important to say to them? Now, I get hundreds of emails a day, most of them I either don't want to read because they are press releases and email list discussions, or because it is just piling another hour or more onto my workday. Email has become an omnipresent source of work related stress-you are never done or free from work, because you have to check your email. Aarrggghhhh. It just never ends, and I need a breather.
This is an open thread. What are you thinking, reading, or doing tonight?
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
The debates surrounding the issue of expanding or restricting access to the right to vote are in high gear this legislative session at both state and Congressional levels. Bills filed range from proposals to lower the voting age to voter ID requirements. Project Vote's Election Legislation monitoring project has identified a surge of contentious election bills this year, but whether this is simply the result of the standard impact of a presidential election year or the byproduct of increasingly fractious partisan politics, the future of the foundational right of American democracy is being set right now.
This week Project Vote examines the progress of four hot-button voting rights issues through legislatures and the media. Youth voting in primary elections, voter identification (and its harbinger; accusations of voter fraud), felon disenfranchisement, and vote caging were all in play.
Advocates concerned with any of these issues as well as the entire spectrum of voting rights and election administration legislation can follow the progress of these types of bills through 21 state legislatures at Project Vote's ElectionLegislation.org tool (registration required).
What follows is a multiple regression analysis that attempts to predict a candidate's 2008 vote share based on the 2004 vote shares of candidates in the same city. I've run the regression on all New Hampshire towns that had at least 100 Democratic voters in 2008, weighting larger towns more heavily.
This regression produces a number of coefficients that represent how much support was transferred from one candidate to another. For example, if the coefficient between John Kerry and Hillary Clinton is .73, that means that for every percentage point that Kerry had in a district in 2004, Hillary tended to pick up .73 percentage points in 2008.(...)
Liberman
.66 Clinton
.15 Obama
.05 Richardson
-.16 Edwards
It might also be helpful to turn these numbers around and look at where each of the '08 candidates' support is coming from.(...)
Obama
.93 Dean
.45 Clark
.38 Edwards '04
.15 Lieberman
.09 Kerry
Poblano's analysis means that Barack Obama is winning virtually all Dean voters from 2004, and a plurality of Clark voters from 2004. In other words, Barack Obama has combined the coalitions of the two main netroots fueled candidates in 2004. It certainly shows, too, given that Obama has raised more money from small donors than Dean and Clark combined from four years ago, and that he is drawing crowds even larger than the ones for Dean that caused the media to ooo and aaahhh four years ago.
So, let's see here: a campaign that uses extensive internet organizing, huge campaign rallies, heavy youth and creative class support, a record breaking number of small donors, a fulfilled promise of record turnout, and combination of Dean and Clark voters to force the best possible candidate the Democratic establishment could offer down to the wire?. Correct me if I am wrong, but in terms of structure, that seems to be exactly what the emergence of the progressive blogosphere suggested could happen in a Democratic Presidential primary in 2004. Just because the campaign in question was not, seemingly, single-handedly plucked from relative obscurity by a few prominent bloggers does not mean the Obama campaign is not using the exact same energy and exact same new, political trajectory that the blogosphere was riding back in 2003-2004.
Barack Obama's campaign is the manifestation of the contemporary progressive movement after it exploded from its original early adaptors and disseminated widely into American culture at large. What Obama is doing would simply not be possible without the explosion of new progressive activism that started in the late 1990's with such seemingly disparate events as the founding of MoveOn.org, the Seattle WTO protests, and the multiple outrages over the 2000 Presidential election. Hell, no matter the problems we have with him at different time, Obama was really the first netroots candidate to be elected to the Senate. In Chicago in early 2004, I saw him use the Dean coalition plus African-Americans (and a colossal, timely, flame-out by a self-funded front-runner) to win his Senate primary. Obama was also the only top-tier candidate who opposed the war from the start this time around, and I don't think you will find Obama's campaign is to the right of Dean's on pretty much anything.
It feels like the butterfly effect, the Frankenstein monster, or some sort of self-mutating computer virus. The political zeitgeist that the progressive blogosphere first seized upon five or six years ago was released into the population at large and came back, unexpectedly, as the Barack Obama campaign. That energy certainly didn't turn out with the same rhetorical approach it started with, but otherwise it is nearly structurally identical. In other words, the whole people-powered thing turned out exactly the way we planned it would, only that it sounds a little different. It is like a bunch of loose molecules forming a cloud, once the energy that started almost ten years ago grew, it took on a like of its own, reached a critical mass, and seized onto the first available nucleus. Soon enough, we will find out whether that could covers the Democratic Party in a flood.
Looking at exit polls from Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan, I am left with several questions about the coalition many of the candidates seem to be building:
In all three states, Clinton lost the under 40 vote, but won the over 60 vote. Considering the amounts involved in these swings, sometimes as much as 30%, age is shaping up to be an even bigger divide in the Democratic primary than gender. Why do older and younger Democrats have such sharply divided preferences of Clinton and Obama?
In all three states, McCain has done better with voters who say they are either "dissatisfied" or "angry" with the Bush administration. He has lost those who are "satisfied" or "enthusiastic" with the Bush administration in all three states. If McCain has really made his comeback on the surge, then why are his voters so unhappy with Bush? Also, he has also virtually swept newspaper endorsements. Would McCain have any chance at all without the established media?
Ron Paul does much better among younger voters, and among those who are "angry" with the Bush administration. In fact, if you are a young Republican who is "angry" with the Bush administration, you seem almost guaranteed to be a Ron Paul supporter. Is there a new generation of Republicans coming through the ranks that is very different from the current generation?
There does not appear to be any divide in the Democratic primary between union members and non-union members. As such, do union endorsements mean anything outside of the resources they provide for campaigns?
There is simultaneously an income gap, education gap, and race gap in the Democratic primary. Lower income, lower education voters prefer Clinton, while African-American voters prefer Obama. This means that Clinton is really racking it up among low-income, working class whites. Why is this, and why isn't Edwards doing better among this group?
Anyway, I have to run, but these and other questions about the emerging coalitions in the primary are very interesting. A lengthy primary campaign should provide us with continuing insights to the intra-party coalitions for both Democrats and Republicans, something we have lacked for quite some time the recent string of primary season blowouts.
If you compare Obama's victory in Iowa with his loss in New Hampshire, the story by the numbers is pretty simple. In New Hampshire, Obama tied Clinton among the very liberal, and lost the somewhat liberal, the moderate, and the somewhat conservative groups by 1-2%. That is within the margin of error for all groups. In Iowa, Obama tied Clinton among conservatives, beat her by 2% among moderates (within the margin of error), beat her among 'somewhat liberals' by 11% and crushed her among the very liberal by 16%. This tracks the angry with Bush block that Obama lost from the Iowa to New Hampshire, as angry with Bush voters are probably more liberal than not.
And now, Chris isomewhat despondent that voters are choosing candidates based on identity and not issues. I think though that what has happened is not that identity is paramount, but that ethnic identity and not ideological identity has become paramount. To some extent you can't disentangle these, but if you look at what happened from Iowa to New Hampshire, it's clear that the contest is not between ethnic groups but between competing identities among voting blocks themselves. If the contest is ideological, Obama wins. If it is based on ethnicity and gender, Clinton has a bigger coalition.
In the New Hampshire primary, according to exit polls, 44% of voters who said that the economy was their top issue voted for Hillary Clinton. Also, 44% of voters who listed Iraq as their top issue voted for Obama. Leaving aside the 5% or primary voters who indicated that they wanted to keep troops in Iraq, the following factors were all more determinative of someone's vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary than any of the candidate's position on any issue:
60% of those under 25 years of age voted for Obama
52% of Christians who are neither Catholic nor Protestant voted for Clinton
51% of unmarried women voted for Clinton
50% of unmarried men voted for Obama
50% of those making less than $30K a year voted for Clinton
48% of those over 65 years of age voted for Clinton
48% of those who did not attend college voted for Clinton
46% of women voted for Clinton
45% of seculars voted for Obama
Age, gender, marital status, income, and education were all more determinative of how someone voted in New Hampshire than any issue. In other words, the New Hampshire primary, just like the Iowa caucuses before it, was determined by identity, not issues. Sure, 58% of those vote took the exit poll claimed that issues were more important to them than personal qualities, but the other exit poll numbers show otherwise. People want to think that they are voting on issues, but in reality most of them are not.
Now, I have been writing about the intersection between identity politics and elections for three years. In fact, it is one of my most frequent topics of discussion, as a glance at the demographics archive of both Open Left and MyDD will demonstrate. However, I admit that most of this discussion has been triumphalist, in that I argue demographic trends point to a nearly inevitable Democratic dominance over Republicans, and to a nearly inevitable progressive dominance over centrists in the Democratic Party. What I wasn't prepared for was to face electoral defeat in the Democratic primaries as a result of the identity scales tipping against my favorite candidates.
The problem I face is that it now seems to me that Clinton is positioned for victory in the Democratic primary because, as it is presently constructed, the identity politics coalitions within the Democratic primary electorate favor her. She has women, older voters, and lower income voters who are not African-American. Even though I had assumed otherwise, right now, it seems like that coalition can win a national Democratic primary against a coalition of African-Americans, young voters, seculars, and high education voters. As someone who falls primarily within the latter coalition, I admit it doesn't feel good when the identity politics are stacked against you. To put it a different way, I actually write about identity politics all the time, I just don't like when I am on the losing end of elections based on identity politics (which is, actually, almost all elections).
I don't hate identity politics, as I see it as an unavoidable factor in the American political system. If you want to play in American politics, you better be willing to play in identity politics. Granted, as we have seen in numerous recent remarks from the Clinton and Obama campaigns, it also isn't the most edifying form of discussion around. I left academia because, after several years, it seemed like a series of incredibly smart, stimulating discussions about issues that weren't really that important. Unfortunately, at least partially due to the dominance of identity politics, I have found being a political professional to be exactly the opposite: a series of pretty stupid arguments about incredibly important issues. But there is no way to avoid it, and if you want to play in American politics, you better be prepared to play in identity politics. Identity is far more determinative of ideological and partisan tendencies than any "issue" could ever be. This even goes for dominant issues like Iraq.
Whoever wins this nomination will ultimately do so because s/he put together a larger, identity-based coalition. I wish that weren't the case, but I don't think there is a way to avoid it. If you support a candidate, and want to help him or her win the nomination, you would be wise to start thinking of ways to effectively connect that candidate to the identities of those voters with whom you come into contact. As far as I can tell, on both a micro and macro level, that is the key to the nomination.
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.
No matter what was the actual cause, it is probably accurate to say that African-Americans are more likely than whites to think that white voters lied about supporting Obama in New Hampshire. There has been long-standing semi-anecdotal, focus group evidence that African-Americans were more concerned than whites about white Democrats nominating Obama. Also, to no one's surprise African-Americans do perceive greater racism in America than do whites, as its easier to pick up such things when you are on the business end of them. My question in this post is not to definitely determine whether or not there was a Bradley effect in New Hampshire, but to ask if the perception of such an effect will help or hurt Obama as the primary season moves forward.
On the one hand, the perception of a Bradley effect could have a demoralizing impact on the African-American vote for Obama, which would obviously be a negative for his campaign, for the Democratic Party in general, and for the African-American community. On the other hand, it could solidify African-American support for Obama, and spur on even more African-American activist for Obama, due to a perception that more work and organization will be needed in order to overcome white racism in the primary season. I honestly have no idea which scenario is more likely. In Survey USA polls of South Carolina before and after Iowa, Obama gained 26 points among African-Americans, and 19 points among whites. He can still win narrowly South Carolina even without the boost he received from white voters, but he probably can't win South Carolina without the boost he received from African-American voters. So, this is a very important question for the Democratic nomination season.
When I came home to see OBAMA WINS IOWA on my hotel TV screen I started for the first time in my young life to feel hope. I was desperately hoping for it, I even thought it would happen. But deep inside I never really expected it too. Over the next few days I basked in the victory and relished the increasingly likely possibility that Obama would cruise to the nomination. Then their was New Hampshire. Again I was not prepared for the outcome. I was crushed. How could New Hampshire, the state that seemed to be Obama's base, hand him the loss? I just didn't know how it could have happened. I didn't know what to do or what to think.
The media narratives are out. The Clinton's, once again the Comeback Kids, the race is thrown into disarray. With New Hampshire and Iowa finished, and we have no idea who will be the nominee on either side of the aisle, no clear frontrunner on either side.
So let me take a few of the media narratives and throw in some facts. You know, the basic elements of TRUTH and Reporting?
Did Obama's message of conciliatory unity cost him the New Hampshire primary? Sure looks like it. According to exit polls, 30% of Democrats identified themselves as "dissatisfied" with the Bush administration. Obama narrowly won those voters, 39%-38%. However, among the 62% of participants in the Democratic primary who described themselves as "angry" with the Bush administration, Clinton won 39%-34%. And thus, we have Clinton's 2.6% margin of victory almost precisely.
Democrats are pissed off at Bush, I mean really pissed off and angry. There simply isn't anyway to win this primary without winning the support of those voters. It appears "change" isn't enough to put one over the top in that category, at least here. Clinton won the angrier voters, and so she won New Hampshire.
Update: I should note that this does not necessarily mean Obama is behind Clinton among the "angry with Bush" voters in all states, just that he was behind in New Hampshire. That made the difference here, as I imagine it will make the difference pretty much everywhere. However, I am not drawing an conclusions outside of New Hampshire, since we don't know who leads the angry demo in other states.
Voter turnout in yesterday's New Hampshire primary surpassed previous totals. Without getting into how independents split, why polls were proven wrong or who out-maneuvered whom, we want to posit one factor (besides the warm weather) that boosted these numbers: peer pressure.
If you're monitoring techPresident's Facebook, Myspace and YouTube tallies, you know that web-based social networks are lighting up over the elections. If you follow the work of sites like Future Majority, you know that a major component to youth turn-out is peer-to-peer communication. If you attend chapters of Drinking Liberally, you know that people everywhere are talking politics and pulling each other to the polls.
Peer pressure works. That's what it's so scary in junior high school. And that's why it's so awesome in voter turnout (although sometimes scary again, depending on whom peers are pressured to vote for).
But as we all know, peer pressure works best when it's easy to give in to, and that's the real hero in the turnout story so far: Election Day Registration.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, you can show up, register and vote...all at once!!! Inconceivable to folks like us in New York who have a labyrinthine calendar to determine when you need to register by. Efforts to pass EDR in places like Iowa (an initiative to which our friends at CREDO Action were integral) have made peer pressure easier...and that makes it work.
Say for example that somebody came to Drinking Liberally for the first time, and we told them they had to wait 3 weeks to have a drink. Doubtless, they would find other pursuits. But, when you make political participation as easy as buying a round, all the social networks, web 2.0 apps, and good old-fashion cajoling become that much more effective.
I feel bad for the unregistered New Yorkers who may feel the peer pressure to show up on February 5th, only to find at the polling station that they can't take the dive down the slippery slope of political engagement. At least, in their moment of dismay, they can still have a drink.
Was it massive polling error? Were women motivated by a double standard imposed on Clinton for showing emotion? Was it the Wilder / Bradley effect, where white voters lie about supporting African-American candidates to pollsters out of perceived social pressure? Was it something else? Twelve public polling organizations were in the field in New Hampshire entirely after the Iowa caucuses. One of these organizations concluded interviews on Saturday, January 5th. Seven concluded interviews on Sunday, January 6th. Four concluded interviews on Monday, January 7th.. The average of the final results from these pollsters is as follows:
Now, compare this to the results, with only one precinct outstanding
Clinton: 38.99% (+9.07, +30.3%)
Obama: 36.39% (-0.86, -2.3%)
Edwards: 16.91% (-2.01, -10.6%)
Richardson: 4.60% (-1.15, -20.0%)
While Obama and Richardson both saw their support drop from the final polling average, Edwards saw his drop as much as Obama and Richardson combined. It is possible that Edwards saw his numbers drop for a different reason than Obama or Richardson, or even that all three saw their numbers drop for different reasons. However, given Obama's numbers dropped the least, both in overall terms and in percentage terms, I am not convinced of a "Wilder effect here at all. Or, at least, I am not convinced that the "Wilder effect" was the only dynamic in play. It seems equally plausible that Edwards and Richardson saw their support drop much the way third-party support always drops from the polls to the final results. The lower the perceived chance a third-party candidate has the win, the larger their expected drop from the polls to the final results. It would appear that those voters broke toward Clinton.
Here is what I think happened, in chronological order:
While everyone's still in shock about N.H., I wrote this for today's Beyond Chron.
The polls in the final days showing Barack Obama with a double-digit lead in New Hampshire were not wrong, and I was not unreasonable - though a bit cocky - to gloat that the Clintons were history. Instead, what happened was 17% of New Hampshire voters made up their minds on Election Day. And Hillary Clinton's huge gender gap suggests that last-minute media attacks on her "crying" swayed women to her side. Just like Iowa, New Hampshire voters said that change was more important than experience - which continues to be her Achilles heel as the race moves to Nevada and South Carolina. Last week, the New York Senator was in danger of losing because voters saw her as "Clinton" - the establishment candidate who will carry on a political dynasty when voters want something new. But on Election Day, enough came to view her as "Hillary" who would create change by becoming the first woman President. This explains the unexpected result, and the tide of public opinion can still shift back.
By the two most common measures--family income and education--Hillary Clinton appears to have eeked out her narrow victory in New Hampshire by taking a populist advantage, according to exit polls. Although it certainly wasn't the overt thrust of her campaign, it certainly was a distinct, if not overwhelming result, while Edwards, he did run an overtly populist campaign, showed no appreciable class difference, and Obama skewed wealthier and more educated:
Vote By Income
Family income:
% Total
Clinton
Edwards
Obama
$15-30,000
9
51
14
30
$30-50,000
18
44
16
32
$50-75,000
23
33
19
40
$75-100,000
16
36
18
42
$100-150,000
17
33
17
44
$150-200,000
6
46
15
34
$200,000 or More
6
37
12
43
Vote By Income
Family income:
% Total
Clinton
Edwards
Obama
Less than $50,000
33
47
15
32
$50,000 or more
67
35
17
41
Vote By Education
Last grade of school completed
% Total
Clinton
Edwards
Obama
No High School
3
61
9
28
High school graduate
17
46
17
31
Some college / associate degree
27
40
16
40
College graduate
29
38
18
37
Postgraduate study
24
31
16
43
Vote By Education
Last grade of school completed
% Total
Clinton
Edwards
Obama
High school graduate or less
19
49
16
30
More than high school grad
81
37
17
40
As Chris noted:
Over the last twenty-four hours, there were media character assassination attempts against Clinton because she showed emotion, or something. That simply must have been what put Obama over the top. Seriously--nothing else really happened in the last twenty-four hours, so that must be the cause. Looks like that attempt to take Clinton down completely backfired.
These are the people who are most familiar with the unearned humiliation and contempt that was heaped on Clinton with such evident glee, and they are the ones who gave her the edge. I am not a Clinton supporter, but I totally get the logic of their vote, and fully sympathize. Maybe the best possible outcome of this election would be a series of different, unexpected blows against the Versailles punditalkcrazy and their "conventional wisdom."
Wow. Everyone has now called New Hampshire for Clinton. Shocking, stunning, amazing that she could overcome an 8% deficit in the polls in just one day. The huge turnout among Democratic women did the trick, as did her ability to stay even with Obama among the massive liberal vote. Over the last twenty-four hours, there were media character assassination attempts against Clinton because she showed emotion, or something. That simply must have been what put Obama over the top. Seriously--nothing else really happened in the last twenty-four hours, so that must be the cause. Looks like that attempt to take Clinton down completely backfired. And, as both Rachel Maddow and Dday said, that is a very, very good thing.
Forget all the stories about Clinton collapsing. Now, we have a really interesting campaign on our hands. Clinton once again become the favorite, but Nevada and South Carolina loom.
Obama beat McCain. Democratic turnout looks to be at about 285,000, which is an increase of about 35% from 2004. Republican turnout looks to about about 240,000, well behind the Dems but not as far behind as had been thought at one point. In 2000, overall turnout was only 363,000 in New Hampshire, so this is a massive increase. In a sign of which way the political wind is blowing, eight years ago Republican turnout was at 210,000, and Democratic turnout was at 153,000. Democrats went up 86%, while Republicans when up 12%.
We will also need some explanations as to why the polling was so utterly wrong. This almost never happens. Here are some possible reasons:
A last minute swing toward Clinton, as mentioned above.
Clinton had a superior, momentum-proof, absentee voting program.
Bad poll weighting. I wonder if pollsters were weighing down samples of women and Democrats in their surveys, both of which increased from 2004.
Return of the lying white voter?
Great weather in New Hampshire brought out older voters? I don't buy this one, since both the under 30 and over 65 voters increased as a percentage of the electorate.
Another theory: some indies thought Obama had it locked up, so they voted for McCain instead, who was supposedly ahead by less than Obama.
It is probably a combination of reasons. Also, note that the exit polls weren't wrong--they showed a 39-39 tie. The polls taken before today were wrong. People will be trying to figure this one out for a long time.
From the Concord Monitor website: ?? / 65% of 301 precincts reporting:
Clinton: 39%: 67,826 (+5,090, Clinton starting to move clear)
Obama 36%: 62,736
Edwards: 17%
Richardson: 5%
Kucinich: 2%
Update 15: MSNBC calls it for Clinton. What an all-time shocker. The momentum swings back in her direction, now. Nevada looms as a huge, huge battleground.
Update 14 This just in over email:
One of the only real college towns (a small one) to report so far has been Keene, which went 41-27 for Obama. Durham/Newmarket and Hanover haven't reported yet.
This is going to be very close.
Update 13: Starting to wonder if Obama can catch up here. The vote margin keeps increasing, and Clinton won the cities, 41%--39%.
Update 12: I'm going to start looking more at the vote margin than anything else. Also, in 2004, Dean scored 57,761 votes. Clinton and Obama are about to pass that number.
Update 11: I also wonder how much absentee voting there was. No only would it be unaffected by momentum, but it wouldn't be including in the exit poll. Clinton could very well win this...
Update 10: Apparently, no college towns have reported yet. That is good news for Obama. Check that: Keane is a college town and has reproted.
Update 9: I'm officially stunned. The eleven poll average, taken entirely post-Iowa, showed Obama ahead by 7.8%. Polling averages are rarely off by more than a net of 3%. This is looking like at least 6% net error across the average, and possibly more. Stunning. People will guess at the reasons for this for a while. My best guess is a sharp turn toward Clinton among older women when the media, and Edwards, criticized Clinton for showing some emotion. No matter how male the punditry might be, one forgets that women are a majority of the electorate at one's own peril...
Update 8: This is really bad news for Obama if he loses. Clinton now seems like she will be OK no matter what, because she beat expectations. "Comeback Clinton," will be one of the narratives, even if she loses. However, if she comes back all the way and wins, then Obama's momentum might not only be stopped, it could be reversed. Nevada now looms as a major battleground...
Update 7: More exit poll comparisons. The liberal vote is way up, from 47% to 57%. While this should have benefited Obama, he only leads Clinton 40-37% in that category. Women also turned out at high rates, up to 57% from 54%. Again, a good sign for Clinton.
Update 6: Comparing 2004 and 2008 New Hamsphire exit polls. Under 30 vote up from 14% to 17%, but over 65 vote also up from 11% to 14%. Self-identified Democrats increase from 48% to 54%. the former is a wash, the latter is good for Obama Clinton.
Update 5: The CNN exit poll projects to a very narrow Obama win, 39.4%--38.1%. That is within the margin of error for the exit poll, probably. There appears to be massive Democratic, female turnout. Clinton appears to have rallied women aged 40 and over.
Update 4: Apparently, the exit poll shows Obama ahead 39%-34%. It might be even closer than that. I have heard that Clinton did have Dean's New Hampshire field guru (can't remember her name), and Michael Whouley working in New Hampshire. That is a helluva field team.
Update 3: Clinton is certainly doing well so far, much better than expectations. Still, one would expect that the larger, urban precincts haven't reported yet, and that those precincts should favor Obama. Also, there is no way that Edwards beats Clinton now. CNN has officially projected him 3rd.
Update 2: On the Republican side, McCain has beeen declared the winner by every news outlet.
No exit polls to be released before the polls closed, at least not exit polls that have numbers for any of the candidates. Some other, less interesting data, from the exit polls can be found here. Also, apart from obvious sources like the Union Leader and CNN, what are the best sites to watch returns? Please post in the comments.
Polls close at 7pm 8pm eastern. This is an open thread for the prelude to New Hampshire results.
Update: I think some polls close at 7pm, but most close at 8pm. Also, it appears that there has been a surge in Democratic turnout. MSNBC reports that 55% of voters in the Democratic primary are self-identified Democrats. In 2004, that numbers was only 48%. But don't worry, I'm sure we will hear about the surge of independents, rather than the surge of Democrats.
