Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Exit Polls: Caution

Read these with a proper degress of skepticism:

The states indicating an Obama lead in exit polls:

Florida: 52 percent to 44 percent
Iowa: 52 percent to 48 percent
Missouri: 52 percent to 48 percent
North Carolina: 52 percent to 48 percent
New Hampshire: 57 percent to 43 percent
Nevada: 55 percent to 45 percent
Pennsylvania: 57 percent to 42 percent
Ohio: 54 percent to 45 percent
Wisconsin: 58 percent to 42 percent
Indiana: 52 percent to 48 percent
New Mexico: 56 percent to 43 percent
Minnesota: 60 percent to 39 percent
Michigan: 60 percent to 39 percent

The states where McCain is leading in exit polls:

Georgia: 51 percent to 47 percent
West Virginia: 45 percent to 55 percent

As Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said about exit polls in an interview today with the Huffington Post: "The biggest problem with exit polls is... we do know that young voters are much more likely to do an exit survey and seniors are much less likely to do an exit poll," he said. "So exit polls are heavily waited to young people, which normal bias favors Democrats especially this year."

My own view: Obama's margin in the states listed for him above seem too high based on the final tracking polls before the election, possibly by +5 points. That would turn three states around for McCain: Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina.

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