Once again, the primaries put polling in a bad light. The exit polls, of course, were not at all predictive, but everyone (including especially the professional pollsters) has known that for some time and newscasters were careful not to misuse the data this year. Rather, it was the pre-primary polls that were again surprisingly wobbly. Those polls, of course, got out. But even so, most media people are wary now of exaggerating their importance.
In California, the Reuters/Zogby poll had Romney ahead by seven points the day before the primary election. Then McCain won the next day by eight points. You can't easily explain away a fifteen point difference like that. It must be galling to John Zogby, whose accuracy since the famous Clinton/Dole race of 1996 has been his calling card.
The ubiquity of the McCain win in California was also notable, and it was missed by almost all reporting. Apparently, McCain won every Congressional district but two, one on the coast, one in the San Jaoquin Valley. If so, he gets 164 of the state's 170 delegates, quite a haul. (Romney gets six.) It has been hard to find this information anywhere besides the Secretary of State's office in Sacramento, unfortunately.
If nothing else, the difficulty of counting on polls in the age of cell phones and unlisted home phone numbers--not to mention the cursed sophistication of voters who no longer think it an honor to answer a lot of questions from a stranger--means that we really are flying by the seat of our pants now. That's an exaggeration, of course, but don't you think it is interesting, even exhilarating, that the two candidates--McCain and Huckabee--who long couldn't afford polls nonetheless have managed to win so many primary elections?
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