How Did Pollsters Fail in NH? No Last Minute Data

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

Pollsters at the Marist Institute for Public Opinion may have put their finger on what went wrong polling-wise in NH:

During the final days of the campaign, Democratic primary voters were deciding whom to vote for among candidates they liked with nearly four out of ten making up their minds in the last three days according to the exit polls.

The last hours of the campaign were a media feeding frenzy over Clinton’s show of emotion when responding to a voter’s question on Monday morning. Video of her “emotional” moment was everywhere. It was played over and over with unrelenting commentary. ...

New Hampshire has a tradition of voting for women. Democratic Primary voters also like the Clintons. If the pollsters and media pundits erred, it was not in their weekend numbers but in not polling Monday and missing the impact of the unrelenting media coverage that characterized the Clintons as finished.

Unfortunately, few pollsters polled here in New Hampshire on election eve and no one released Monday only poll results. How New Hampshire voters were evaluating the race and the factors they were weighing in the last hours of the campaign were never measured. Even the exit polls, designed in advance, would not capture the final mood of the voters about the campaign.

... Here in New Hampshire, for the most part, Obama’s support was not overstated in the polls. But the polls missed the magnitude of the support for Clinton. Although the pollsters in New Hampshire cannot have Monday night back, we plan to re-contact in the next few days the voters we spoke with over the weekend to glean whatever additional insights we can.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps...

The Associated Press reports concurrence with one conclusion of the Marist pollsters, saying that the error came in estimates of Clinton's support, not of Obama's:

David Bositis, a polling expert with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, said the New Hampshire election results suggest a discrepancy not with Obama's poll numbers, but Clinton's.

"If I were grading the polling, the grade for Obama would be A-plus," said Bositis, whose Washington, DC-based think tank deals with issues affecting the African-American community.

"The errors entirely came from the estimates for Hillary Clinton, not Obama," he said.

"The pre-election estimates for her were 30 percent, and she ended up with 39 percent. What needs to be explained is, how did Hillary improve her numbers?"

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hIoPRy...

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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