Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Exit Polls Greatest Hits: Republicans

Sure, exit polls are notoriously unreliable and they don’t matter, but they’re all the data we have for a while. So, let’s delve into the juicy stats from the surprisingly close GOP race in Virginia:

• At least one poll leading up to today's event showed McCain making strides among Evangelicals, but it looks like those numbers were very exaggerated. Half of the state’s voters were born-again Christians or evangelicals, and they favored Huckabee over McCain by 40 points.
• Sixty-one percent of voters said McCain was most qualified to be commander in chief, but 30 percent of that bloc still voted for Mike Huckabee anyway.
• Sixty-six percent of voters consider themselves conservatives (rather than moderates). Conservatives favored Huckabee over McCain by 23 points.
• Ninety-three percent of the Republican electorate was white. Sixty-one percent of Democratic voters were white.
• Sixty percent of Republicans said they listen to conservative talk radio. Huckabee led among those voters by 12 points.
• Pro-life Republicans are still favoring Huckabee over McCain (56 percent to 35 percent), while pro-choicers continue to ally themselves with McCain (64 percent to 24 percent).

We offer our usual disclaimer that these numbers can change. All stats taken from CNN’s stats.

Pollsters Protect Magic Algorithms

A quick assessment of pre-election polling versus election results over at RealClearPolitics shows a typical sampling of accuracy and error in RCP's average of major polls. (See chart at end of post.) But social psychologist Jon Krosnick, a professor at Stanford and an expert on polling methodology, points out that, whether the various polls are dead-on or egregiously off-base at the end of the night, we still will not learn anything about how to do it better next time.

The problem, Krosnick said when I caught up with him this evening, is that pollsters refuse to release their methodology after the fact. There are enough variables in the process -- most importantly, how the pollsters defines the slippery concept of a "likely voter" -- that it is very difficult to independently assess which are more robust.

"What it comes down to is that the people who are making money by doing polling don’t want to reveal anything that can be used against them," Krosnick says. "But if they’re reluctant now, why shouldn’t they release the [complete] polls they did five years ago?"

Simply releasing the complete data sets, not just the conclusions, he says, would allow him and his colleagues to reconstruct the methodology and compare it to actual voters in previous elections, enabling them to determine which estimates of likely voters were most accurate. As it stands, he says, "there’s really no potential for us to have a solid scientific basis to determine this."

That Pesky Exit Poll Result

In a conference call this afternoon, Hillary addressed the Michigan exit poll result that showed “Uncommitted” beating her among African-Americans, nearly 70 percent to 26 percent.

Asked whether this could hurt her in South Carolina and beyond, she replied, “No, I’m committed to running a broad-based campaign,” and said she’s “thrilled that we have people contesting for the nomination of the Democratic Party that represent the historical progress that America has been so noted for.” The campaign’s official response points out that Obama supporters organized on behalf of “Uncommitted,” despite his pledge not to campaign in Michigan.

All fair and true. But neither answer addresses the disparity between the overall results—Hillary beat Uncommitted handily, 55 percent to 40 percent—and the results among blacks. No matter how much behind-the-scenes, pro-Uncommitted antics were going on, it’s clear that that campaign penetrated among African-Americans much more than it did among the rest of the population.

The Obama campaign likewise played down the results in a memo: “[T]he results of the primary tonight have no bearing on the Democratic nomination contest.” Which is, of course, the right move given that Hillary beat Obama in head-to-head match-ups, 46 percent to 35 percent. But no doubt some people on Team Obama saw the exit poll results and smiled.

Poll Noise

It's poll-a-palooza out there today. Some highlights from the CNN/WMUR (Dems' PDF; GOP's PDF) poll in New Hampshire.

• Rudy Giuliani has stalled in New Hampshire and hasn't broken the 20-point barrier since early November. McCain, meanwhile, is gently on the rise in second place.
• In June 2007 the war in Iraq was the most important issue for 36 percent of voters. Now it's the most important issue for 13 percent. 31 percent of Democrats say Iraq is most important, tied with health care. Illegal immigration and homeland security are both more important than Iraq for Republicans.
  
• Granite State residents trust Giuliani and McCain to do the best job when dealing with terrorism, but Romney to best handle illegal immigration, taxes, and the economy. Romney is also most trusted on abortion.
• Romney's support is skewed towards college-educated, richer residents. McCain's towards high-school educated, poorer New Hampshire citizens.
  
• 22 percent of New Hampshire Republicans have definitely decided who to vote for. 31 percent of Democrats have decided.
• 60 percent of undeclared voters say they'll vote in the Democratic primary

Health Care Totally Beats Security: Poll

Hillary Clinton’s camp is positively afloat over the new NBC News/WSJ poll. Bush’s ratings remain in the dumps, half of Americans want a Democratic president (as opposed to 35 percent who want a Republican commander-in-chief), and it looks like Clinton’s post-debate lead over her closest Democratic opponent is about as wide as her pre-debate lead.

But one of the most interesting findings—and one that certainly benefits Hillary—is this one.

Americans by 52% to 34% call the economy and health care, issues that favor Democrats, more important to their vote than the Republicans' relative strong suits of terrorism and values. That's a reversal from the Journal-NBC poll finding just before the 2004 vote that re-elected Mr. Bush and Republican congressional majorities, when voters rated terrorism and values more important, by a 49%-to-39% margin.

The implications for a candidacy like Rudy Giuliani’s couldn’t be more stark. Just yesterday, when announcing his endorsement for the former mayor, Pat Robertson ranked terrorism at the top of America’s priorities. But if this poll is correct—and its impressive 1,500-person sample size gives it extra heft—Rudy’s whole security uber alles approach might be more out of touch with mainstream Americans than he thought. That said, if he really is out of sync, it doesn’t seem to be hurting him so far: The poll shows him and Hillary competing neck and neck, with 46 percent of Americans saying they’d back Hillary to Giuliani’s 45 percent.