01-09-2008, 02:55 PM
the polls were remarkably off this time, but my memory is that some of them had margins of error of around 5%, so actually the result could be within that.
I don't think we will ever know. The people I know in NH were still undecided or deciding yesterday. My guess is that at least for some people, undecided between Hillary and Obama, decided to vote for Hillary in the end because they thought that Obama was going to win by a lot, and wanted to give Hillary some support, or thought they could vote for Hillary after all not expecting her to win. Some independants, thinking Obama was a lock, might have voted on the republican side for McCain as well.
So I would guess the polls showing Obama with a large lead impacted the results significantly in the last day or so (so they were accurate on the day of the poll, more or less).
I don't think we will ever know. The people I know in NH were still undecided or deciding yesterday. My guess is that at least for some people, undecided between Hillary and Obama, decided to vote for Hillary in the end because they thought that Obama was going to win by a lot, and wanted to give Hillary some support, or thought they could vote for Hillary after all not expecting her to win. Some independants, thinking Obama was a lock, might have voted on the republican side for McCain as well.
So I would guess the polls showing Obama with a large lead impacted the results significantly in the last day or so (so they were accurate on the day of the poll, more or less).