Friday, Jan. 11, 2008 | 9:53 a.m.
Four days after New York Senator Hillary Clinton’s performance in the Democratic half of the New Hampshire primary shocked the media world, pollsters still are trying to explain how they got it so wrong.
Most pollsters blame a New Hampshire campaign condensed from two weeks in past election cycles to just five days this year – and little ideological separation between the Democratic party’s two leading candidates.
“This is a fight between two exceptionally skilled politicians,” said Peter Hart, a Washington, DC pollster for NBC and the Wall Street Journal. “There is not a rigid ideology that draws boundaries for the voters.
“It’s easy to skate from one candidate to another.”
The prevailing belief is two events halted Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s momentum after his decisive victory in the Iowa caucus: Clinton’s addressing how many view Obama as more likable than her during Saturday’s debate followed by her tears before a roundtable of likely female voters Monday.
Because the events happened within 60 hours of the primary, the impact of the events may not have been represented in the polls, some pollsters suspect.
“All the momentum (had been) with the cool, hot young African-American candidate – the wave candidate,” said Glen Bolger, a leading Republican pollster.
That was, until Clinton made a final push – connecting with some voters, maybe those who had been undecided, “on a gut level,” Bolger said.
Several pollsters and pundits contend they didn’t get it terribly wrong: they note they weren’t too off on Obama’s final vote percentage. It appears, they say, those who were undecided in the days leading to the primary swung to Clinton.
“Obama basically got what he was polling,” Bolger said. “Clearly, there was a shift (among undecideds) at the end.”
There’s another theory: the media’s emphatic prediction of an overwhelming Obama victory may have prompted some Independent supporters of his to instead choose among Republican candidates.
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