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Clinton rocks the vote in the Granite State
With her stunning victory over Barack Obama in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton disproved the polls and pundits and set up the Democratic race of a lifetime.
By Walter Shapiro [2008-01-09]

  • Polls

    Polling might be a "science" grounded in statistics, but it can't capture all the ways people's minds work.

    I think it's easy to tell pollsters who you support, but on election day, you have to consider seriously, can this candidate win the general election? And that candidate might not be the one who excited you. And this year, it's harder than ever. What would be more of an anathema to the redneck fundies who voted in Bush, an African-American, son of a foreign-born father (and let's not forget that Kenya's in the news for mayhem these days) or a woman who is Mrs. Bill Clinton?

    In 1992, the pollsters were getting wildly diverging data from poll to poll. Why? No big events caused the swing. Based on all polls past, it made no sense.

    Then someone figured it out. If you asked voters, 'who will you vote for: Bush or Clinton' THEN asked them 'Bush, Clinton or Perot,' they were much more likely to say 'Perot' than if the questions were asked the other way around. Of course, to fix the problem, the pollsters became consistent about question order, but obviously, question order made a psychological difference to plenty of voters.

    -- Malusinka
    [Read Malusinka's other letters]
    Wednesday, January 9, 2008 07:08 AM
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