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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

"Likely voter" assumpitons with no historical precedent

Keep in mind that all polling for today's contests relies on assumptions about who is a likely voter. Pollsters are in uncharted territory this year in forming those assumptions because the only historical data is from past contests when the outcomes in these states' primaries were irrelevant. Obviously, pollsters will make allowances, but all they can do is adjust assumptions based on guesses.

My own guess is that most pollsters will tend to make fairly conservative adjustments to their likely-voter assumptions, because it's safer for them. If they are wrong, they can always say "turnout was higher than we anticipated." No one wants to say "the unprecedented turnout we expected didn't materialize". Even in this exceptional year, conservative assumptions are easier to hide behind than "out there" assumptions.

I think a bunch of people are going to come out and vote for Obama and he's going to win both big states tonight.

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posted at 12:21 PM

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