Here's a roundup of the last series of polls taken in New Hampshire before the Democratic primary, courtesy of NRO's Campaign Spot (and with data from Real Clear Politics):
"Obama by 5, Obama by 9, Obama by 13, Obama by 7, Obama by 9, Obama by 8, Obama by 7."
Hillary's win tonight is, to me, the most stunning and immediately inexplicable political upset of the decade thus far. If there is any recent precedent where so many credible pre-election polls have been proven so wrong, I am unaware of it. (Moreover, the late polls were basically right on target regarding the GOP contest.) Pundits and political scientists are already trying to figure out what happened tonight, and it seems certain that the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary will be heavily studied for a long time to come.
In more immediate terms, it will be extremely interesting to see how this defeat will affect the extraordinarily favorable press coverage that the Obama campaign has been receiving since Iowa. The golden boy has had his nose bloodied.
Update: According to Tim Russert, Hillary's last internal tracking poll had her losing by 11 points.
No comments:
Post a Comment