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What The Polls Predict

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Chris Bowers has an excellent post analyzing what exactly can be gleaned from pre election polls in this contest. Chris' analysis demonstrates that Obama wildly overperformed polling in caucus states while Clinton overperformed polling in most primary states. I think Chris misses an essential point in discussing polling in primary states. Chris writes:

Obama wildly outperformed the polls in caucus states such as Colorado, Minnesota and Washington, each of which only had one poll that was more than a week old. However, he also outperformed the polls by double digits in primary states like Alabama, Delaware, D.C., Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. By contrast, Clinton has never outperformed the polls by more than 10%, although she did do quite well in California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Mexico.

All of these states had outsized African American populations and most were largely uncontested by Clinton. In essence large leads became even larger. But in contested states like California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Arizona, Clinton outperformed the polling.

These polling issues closely mirror the last test for Obama - win a big contested state. Texas and Ohio (where there is a rumor of a SUSA poll showing Obama within 9) provide the last electoral test for Obama to pass to secure the nomination.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 19, 2008 (boomark / email).