Unlikely Voter

I made a big deal about the polling in Iowa being skewed. However I have no reason to suspect oddness in the New Hampshire polling going into today. Open primaries are much easier to poll than closed caucuses.

Jon Huntsman has rebounded rapidly, but he’ll likely finish behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

Three quick polls of New Hampshire came out this week to try to measure the effect of Iowa on New Hampshire. Predictably, the top three of Iowa are now the top three in New Hampshire.

This matters most to the one candidate that put nothing into Iowa and everything into New Hampshire: Jon Huntsman.

Last time around, Mitt Romney took a blow when he took ‘silver’ in his neighboring state New Hampshire, losing to the man who’d been plotting to win the state since the last contested primary there, John McCain.

This time it looks like Romney is going to repeat the McCain strategy. By never having given up on the state since November 2008, Romney looks set to take the state this time around, according to the new Suffolk University/WHDH poll.

Today we have high profile races in South Carolina, Nevada, California, and Arkansas to look back on and see how well the pollsters’ numbers matched the actual results.

As I’m just one person who lacks the luxury of doing this site full time, I’m not ashamed to work off of Real Clear Politics to make these assessments.

I keep saying that multiway races are volatile. When voters are spread out in more directions, the sums are smaller and it’s easier for big changes to happen.

Suffolk University’s latest on the Nevada Senate primary for the Washington Times seems to be another example of this effect. Sue Lowden has gone from first to last, and Sharron Angle now leads.

Per Real Clear Politics there were six pollsters who took on the Pennsylvania primary, which Joe Sestak won handily by 8, 54-46 over Arlen Specter.

Let’s see who got it right, and also give credit to a particular pollster where it is due.