News from the VotemasterAll the polls were wrong, at least on the Democratic side. They all were uniformly predicting an Obama win and it didn't happen. Here are the results with 96% of the precincts reporting. For the Democrats:Hillary Clinton: 39.2% Barack Obama: 36.4 John Edwards: 16.9% Bill Richardson: 4.6% Dennis Kucinich: 1.4% Joe Biden: 0.2% Mike Gravel: 0.1% Chris Dodd: 0.1% For the Republicans: John McCain: 37.2% Mitt Romney: 31.6% Mike Huckabee: 11.2% Rudy Giuliani 8.6% Ron Paul 7.6% Fred Thompson: 1.2% Duncan Hunter: 0.5% Tom Tancredo: 0.0% The split over the state did not show any clear pattern. Clinton won five counties and Obama won five counties. Among 18-24 year olds, Obama won big, 60% to 24%, but among 25-29 year olds, Clinton edged out Obama 37% to 35%. Obama also won the 30-39 year-old demographic, but Clinton won among those older than 40. On the Republican side, McCain's victory was clear. He swept all the counties except Rockingham County in the southeast, which he lost by 1%. What happened with the polls? That will no doubt be the subject of much discussion in the next few days. Possible factors are: - The record turnout, especially among independents.- Women broke for Clinton 47% to 34% (in Iowa they split evenly) - Independents may have thought Obama was a sure thing so they voted Republican It is definitely not over. All the main players are going to continue the fight. The next contest is the renegade primary in Michigan next Tuesday. Both parties have stripped Michigan of delegates for scheduling it so early. It is not known how seriously any candidates will campaign in it, but they might. Then comes Nevada on Jan. 19, which is officially sanctioned by both parties. There hasn't been much recent polling in Nevada, so it's anybody's guess who's ahead there. Nevada is followed by South Carolina (Jan. 19 for the Republicans, Jan. 26 for the Democrats) where Obama is way ahead of Clinton. This could be the first real battle between McCain, Huckabee, and Thompson. If Thompson can't do well here, he can't do well anywhere and is likely to drop out. Several people have asked why Ron Paul isn't listed. The real (but prosaic) reason is that the lines in the table are already too wide (notice the smaller font there below. Consequently, the candidates who have no chance of winning (e.g, Paul, Hunter, Kucinich, Gravel, etc.) aren't listed. As an aside, the presidential page is still there, just not cited every day any more. The corresponding Senate and House pages are on the menu below the map and are updated frequently. The polling results for all states are available as a Web page and in .csv format. Here are the final New Hampshire polls. What went wrong with the polling will no doubt be discussed a lot in the upcoming days.
-- The Votemaster |