The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer is a two-time Emmy award winner, both for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq.
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A New Hampshire Post-Mortem
February 29, 2008 11:57 AM
Pollsters shed some light on their New Hampshire problem last night, with the Gallup Organization reporting that half the misstatement in its final pre-election poll was caused by its likely voter modeling. But other pollsters differed, agreeing chiefly that the causes of the meltdown remain elusive.
The discussion came at a meeting of the New York Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, whose national organization separately is looking into the failure. Each of nine polls completed the Sunday or Monday before the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary showed Barack Obama numerically ahead, by 3 to 13 points, averaging 8. He lost by 2.
Gallup, whose final poll had Obama ahead by 13 points, had a closer 5-point Obama lead among people who described themselves as registered voters. That means its likely voter modeling, used to produce a more accurate estimate of who’ll actually vote, instead introduced error.
Gallup’s editor-in-chief, Frank Newport, said the modeling included factors such as enthusiasm and attention to the race, both of which may have increased for Obama and slacked off for Hillary Clinton after Obama’s Jan. 3 victory in Iowa. Unlikely voters – those excluded from the model – were much better for Clinton. “Obviously that was a cause for the incorrect likely voter numbers that Gallup put out,” he said.
Given Obama’s lead even among self-reported registered voters, Newport suggested two possible additional factors: late changes in voter preferences and a more effective get-out-the-vote effort by the Clinton campaign. (Presumably bias in self-reporting of registration is possible as well.)
Another polling director, Lee Miringoff of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said likely voter modeling was not a factor in his poll, which showed an 8-point Obama lead. Instead, he said, “Our data suggest there was some kind of late shift to Hillary Clinton among women.”
That conclusion runs counter to data from the exit poll, which showed no large swing to Clinton among late deciders; and two final pre-election polls that if anything found an even larger Obama lead Monday night. The rest of the polls, Gallup’s and Marist’s included, were completed Sunday, a shortcoming Miringoff said he will not repeat.
A third panelist, Sarah Dutton of CBS News, whose poll had a 7-point Obama lead, similarly surmised that the New Hampshire polls “picked up a post-Iowa bounce” for Obama that didn’t carry through to Election Day. She said pollsters may have taken false comfort from the fact that all their data were similar, failing to scrutinize warning signs such as greater strength of support on Clinton’s side.
Otherwise, she said, “We might have had a little bit of an alarm bell saying, gee, we have disproportionate strength of support for these candidates.” Dutton said her analysis was limited by the sample size of the CBS poll, 323 respondents reinterviewed from a November survey.
Newport and Miringoff based their conclusions partly on post-election polls in which they called back respondents to their pre-election polls in an effort to see where those polls went wrong. Analysis of those data is not complete, though Newport said Gallup hopes to post some conclusions on its website next week.
Both said their callback polls reached about two-thirds of the original poll respondents; they hadn’t yet weighted these samples to adjust for the noncoverage, a step that could improve their analysis.
Newport said the people he recontacted divided 37-35 percent for Obama over Clinton in the pre-election poll, while reporting that they actually voted for Clinton over Obama by 39-37 percent, suggesting some changed their minds after the pre-election poll was done. At the same time, he noted the hazards of recall and self-reporting errors in post-election polls.
Marist’s callback poll found a self-reported vote of 37-31 percent in Clinton’s favor (a wider lead than Gallup’s, and than the actual result) compared with its pre-election poll (among all respondents, not just those recontacted on callback) of 36-28 percent for Obama. Twenty percent said they’d changed their minds, of whom nearly half went to Clinton vs. two in 10 for Obama, supporting the notion of a late shift in her favor, he said.
However, the New Hampshire exit poll asked people when they’d “finally decided” whom to support; 17 percent said it’d been in the last day, and they split 39-36 percent for Clinton, not nearly enough to account for the Obama overstatement in the polls. An additional 21 percent said they’d decided in the last three days, and they split 37-34 percent for Obama, again insufficient to explain the pre-election polls.
Dutton suggested that the exit poll question may have been difficult to answer accurately for people who’d switched their preference once or more.
Newport said eight in 10 voters contacted in his callback poll reported having seen the video clip in which Clinton became emotional the day before the election, and more said it made them react positively toward her than negatively. “The video may have had a positive impact,” he said. (He told a questioner that the poll didn’t ask respondents when they’d seen the video – before or after the election, when it received frequent replay.)
Miringoff, similarly, reported that eight in 10 had seen the video, and women in particular reacted to it more positively (31 percent) than negatively (11 percent).
Newport also said Clinton supporters also were more apt to say they’d been contacted by her campaign and offered assistance getting to their polling places, a possible measure of get-out-the-vote effectiveness.
In the future, Miringoff said he’d poll through the Monday before Election Day, and Newport said Gallup would re-evaluate the likely voter model it used in New Hampshire. Both also pledged further data analysis; so far, “What we have are inferential or suggestive data. None of these are huge numbers,” Newport said. “There’s no smoking gun.”
February 29, 2008 in Favorite Posts | Permalink | User Comments (29)
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Hillary had a good "get out the vote" arrangement and that was the reason. I was watching MSNBC during the election and there were reports on the screen that the Clinton camp had hired hundreds of buses to get people out to vote. Obama had poor preparation then. The Obama campaine has since recongnised that and do not take that kind of chances anymore.
Posted by: james | Feb 29, 2008 12:21:18 PM
Just to add. The Hillary camp were able to convince some older voters without rides to change to Hillary camp and provided them ride to cast their votes.
Posted by: james | Feb 29, 2008 12:24:04 PM
Can I say....voter fraud!
Posted by: ava | Feb 29, 2008 12:28:37 PM
Well since the memory cards of the voting machines have been erased in record time. (So much for any recounts) I guess we'll never know what happened or who really won New Hampshire. Thanks to the media for blaming themselves rather than bothering to fully investigate. Pathetic.
Posted by: cba | Feb 29, 2008 1:09:16 PM
Ave: You can say all you want. The people of New Hampshire knew what they wanted and it wasn't Obama. Obama was what the media wanted and didn't get it. Hillary slaughtered them so they should be sure of their polls. The media thought Obama was going to win CA and NY but they got fooled again. Obama could not win those big major states even if Hillary doesn't win the nomination. I believe they will switch ot McCain to block Obama from becoming president. And I say GOOD FOR THEM.
Posted by: Mariann Pepitone | Feb 29, 2008 1:20:02 PM
James,
No, you can't. Unless you care to be more specific in your accusations
Posted by: Observer | Feb 29, 2008 1:24:57 PM
Maryann,
I live in NY. Hillary, the alledged NY candidate carried NY by a mere 17% and that is b/4 Barack was the front-runner. I can't speak about California with the newly (by me) discovered Mexicans making up a third of their population; but I can GUARANTEE you that New York votes BARACK in November.
Baby, you such a Dreamer you really should join our "Fulfill the Dream" movement.
nyer4BarackObama
Posted by: shelgirl | Feb 29, 2008 2:23:43 PM
I heard the Clinton team tried to raise the bar today on the March 4 votes...somneone needs to point out to those rocket scientist that the front runner can raise the bar but the guy trailing? Can't....well I guess they can try but they still come out looking like they are grasphing at straws.
Posted by: Sam | Feb 29, 2008 5:26:27 PM
This is a race for delegates and Obama and Clinton both won 9 delegates from NH. We have 2 Democrat Congressmen who are both for Obama (the Senators are Republicans). Governor hasn't endorsed but introduced Obama at his rally. So Obama comes out of NH with 11 delgates, Clinton with 9. Hardly a loss.
Posted by: Janet from NH | Feb 29, 2008 5:42:50 PM
I think that the polls at this primaries were NEARLY ALL ACCURATE and where not so, the results shifted constantly in favor of Obama duE to voter decision at the last moment, as supported by the exit polls...........
At NH, the % of OBAMA votes were correct, only the ones of Hillary were understated............
It must be stated that Polls are generally less accurate with small figures and many candidates as in NH, and much more precise with large figures and only 2 candidates,as in TX
What happened must be chosen from no more than 3 al;ternatives"
1) The results were not stated accurately, and a recount as KUCINICH asked for should have be done given this
huge discrepancy between Polls and resulys, even without him asking so.
ANYBODY CAN TELL WHY SUCH RECOUNT WAS NOT DONE?? THAT THE COUNTING CAN BE A HUGE MESS IN SUCH PRIMARIES, IS DOCUMENTED BY WHAT HAPPENED IN NEW MEXICO.
2) or possibly, a lot of intended voters for other candidates,as Richardson and Edwards, realized at the last moment that they had no chance and
switvhed to Hillary, but as this is not so nice to say, it was not detected in the exit polls.
3) or as other posts mention, the Hillary campaign was able to induce and/or bus a lot of supporters, especially from the border states, which were not considered in the Polls.
I am surprised that the statisticians
in above article have considered abstract possibilities and not above down-to-earth alternatives. WHEN I STUDIED EVALUATION OF STATISTICS, I WAS TEACHED TO CONSIDER THE SIMPLIEST EXPLANATION FIRST !!
BUT AGAIN; ANY OF THE 3 EXPLANATIONS ABOVE COULD NOT HAPPEN IN A LARGE STATE !!
TOM
Posted by: TOM WITTMANN | Feb 29, 2008 7:28:30 PM
SAM
The delegates of a small State as NH were really not important
If Hillary would have lost by a sizable margin as the polls indicated, this after IOWA would have had a huge influence of the voter perception in the following primaries, and possibly by we would had a winner weeks ago.
TOM
Posted by: TOM WITTMANN | Feb 29, 2008 7:33:58 PM
The simple answer is that Independent voters knew that Obama was going to win. (All the polls said so.) They were going to vote for him but why should they he was going to win. Therefore they were free to vote for McCain. And they did. And Obama lost.
Posted by: Tomkraj | Feb 29, 2008 7:53:40 PM
How about CA poll and NJ Poll? All pollesters except Service USA said Obama won 3-13 points in the polls conducted 3-5 days before voting. The last result had the same result suggested in the polls conducted 6-10 days before voting. There was no "Mo" there at all. Pollster and Media generated the "Mo" trying to change the course. It is classic obama bubble. Just like stock market bubble. When all media and so called analysts called "bullish", the bubble bursted.It will happen again in TX and Ohio. Obama bubble will be gone.
Posted by: false | Mar 1, 2008 12:53:29 AM
I voted for richardson, if I thought the race ws going to be close I would have voted for Obama. I know 5 others who voted for various candidates (incl McCain)but not Obama becuz of the belief that Obama did not need our votes. A recount of Dem votes was conducted for approx 40% of the dem vote Except for a ward in Nashua and a ward in Manchester the results were normal, candidates picked up or lost a couple of votes. In the 2 wards there were about a 50 or so vote swing. (in nashua Clinton & Edwards vice pres write in votes were mistakenly added to their totals, the other candidates were unaffected. I don't know why one of Manchester's 13 wards screwed up, NH does recounts after every primary and general election because of the size of the legislature and various county races and every year a couple election day winners end up losing. We recount all of the ballots not the memory chip. We recounted 100% of the republican race and nothing changed, just a normal recount, a couple votes different here and there. No conspiracy just a normal election.
Posted by: gary | Mar 1, 2008 9:39:23 AM
Most polls in Texas are showing a shift in Momentum Towards Clinton.
Hillary Clinton is strengthening her support among Latinos, Women and older voters.
Obama supporters are conceding that they will not win the majority of Latinos even after spending 5 to 1 in advertising in Spanish.
Contrary to many of the media opinions, the new "3 a.m. phone call" add is having an impact among of those undecided because it remains voters of Obama vulnerability on experience facing a candidate like McCain.
Also, Obama failing to hold a single hearing on Afghanistan since he became chairman of US senate oversight committee is resonating among voters on the question of "SPEECH versus SOLUTION relate to National Security and terrorism.
Posted by: Angel | Mar 1, 2008 11:55:31 AM
I'm astonished that the pollsters don't recognize the effect they had on the vote in New Hampshire. Independents who were confident that Obama would win the Democratic primary voted for McCain to stop Romney in his own back yard.
Posted by: Drew Rocker | Mar 1, 2008 9:32:19 PM
Obama ad featuring the ad featuring retired Gen. Merrill A. McPeak is his response to the questions that many have raised about his national security experience. It so happens Gen. McPeak used Sexist comments in describing Hillary - "as a Crybaby". That is what we get from Obama - he refuses to "Reject" these sexist comments. Obama deflects the critism of his lacking national security experience:Obama admits he neglected his senate responsibilities during the Ohio debate and then thinks we should trust him instead of Clinton in event of a crisis?In case you missed it during the Feb 19th debates in Ohio Senator Obama who also serves as Chair of the subcommittee that has oversight over NATO admitted he has not held one single substantive hearing to figure out what the U.S can do to have a stronger presence with Nato in Afghanistan. Obama admitted it was true stating it was because his responsibilities as chair began at the same time he began running for President. Young men and women are risking their lives and being killed everyday in Afghanistan and he did absolutely nothing because he was too busy running his campaign. This should be wake up call for Obama and all Americans that he not ready or qualified to be President of this nation. Interesting to note that the day after the debate Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee noted that Senator Clinton has introduced more legislation to address the problems facing wounded service members than any other Senator, including The Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act (accomplished while running her presidential race).
Posted by: lukas | Mar 2, 2008 2:03:27 AM
Angry males who do these polls stuff the polls for obama -this is deliberate. the media, including stupid polls, are driving the election-they shouldn't
Posted by: TJJ | Mar 2, 2008 5:13:55 AM
My take on the Houston Chronicle-Zogby Int. poll numbers of the Texas primary with the headline "too close to call"
-Houston Chronicle Poll: "Obama leads Clinton among men by a 52% to 41% margin, while Clinton leads Obama among women by an identical 52% to 41% edge."
Women outvote men these primaries and every election including the 2004 election 56% women to 44% men voters. Advantage Hillary Clinton.
-Houston Chronicle Poll: "Clinton has held a lead among white voters of about 7 percentage points and a lead of at least 20 percentage points over Obama among Hispanics."...and "Clinton had more than 60 percent support in traditionally Hispanic South Texas."
White women plus Latinos were almost 60% of the voters in the Texas 2004 election: Advantage Hillary Clinton
-Houston Chronicle Poll: "while Clinton leads 56% to 31% among voters age 65 and older": Advantage Hillary Clinton.
The big picture is that older voters, white women and Latinos are not embracing Barack Obama candidacy the same way Blacks and young voters are not embracing Hillary Clinton candidacy. However, John McCain may get a huge of those older voters, white women and Latinos facing Barack Obama specially in big states like CA, FL, TX and NY.
We will have the real poll on Tuesday.
Posted by: Angel | Mar 2, 2008 12:40:38 PM
For shelgirl | Feb 29, 2008 2:23:43 PM
'...but I can GUARANTEE you that New York votes BARACK in November. '
I am a New yorker. I am also a die-hard Hillary supporter. Witness the 9/11 in World Trade center, we all know Hillary was there on the ground the next day to offer assistance, visiting injured victims. With that in mind, you know she would not take a chance to risk any possibility to let terrorists free. She voted with all the other Senator approved the Iraq attacked with the information provided by the time. If this happened to your faminly, you would not take any chance to let possible terrorists get a chance. Where was Obama when 9/11 happened?
As New Yorker, I would vote for national security first. If Hillary is not on the general election, I will vote for McCain.
The world could be surprise to see that NY turn 'RED' on general election if Clinton is not represent the "Blue" I know all my blue friends are thinking the same.
Posted by: Claire C | Mar 2, 2008 3:13:19 PM
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