Michael Barone

On Election Night, Be Wary of Early Exit Polls Showing Obama Up

October 22, 2008 RSS Feed Print

I have a column in the Wall Street Journal today on how to read the polls. I have been influenced, as careful readers might guess, by looking ahead to my work with the Decision Desk at Fox News Channel on election night. Exit polls in recent presidential contests have tended to show Democrats doing better than they actually did, and exit polls in most of the Democratic primaries this year showed Barack Obama doing better than he actually did. So, we can be pretty sure that when the first Edison/Mitofsky exit poll numbers are released to media clients, including Fox News, around 5 p.m., they will show Obama ahead. But will that forecast the result? My view is that we should be very cautious in our use of those numbers.

Tags:
Wall Street Journal,
presidential election 2008,
Barack Obama,
elections,
polls

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Acorn has submitted a huge number of fraudlent registrations all over the country. They are being investigated, what's worse this orginization started running ad's to support Obama.

To top it all off, the Democrats tried to send Billions of dollars to this organization through the bailout bill. No conflict of interest in this movement is there?

Bruce of CA 6:13PM November 04, 2008

GOD HELP THIS COUNTRY IF OBAMA GETS ELECTED - LOOK AT THE PEOPLE IN HARLEM VOTING FOR HIM. THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE ISSUES ARE - THEY ARE JUST VOTING FOR HIM BECAUSE HE IS BLACK! WAKE THE HECK UP AMERICA....AND NOBODY CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING BECAUSE THE MEDIA IS DAMN BIASED!!!!! OY!!!

CARRIE of NJ 5:02PM November 04, 2008

One word......

ACORN!!!

Keith of NC 4:31PM November 04, 2008

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

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Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal coauthor of The Almanac of American Politics. He has written for many publications—including the Economist and the New York Times.

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