D.U.M.B.

New Hampshire indies LOVE ... LOVE with a cap L ... John McCain. They carried him in '00.

To think they would jump for the johnny come lately is dumb.  D.U.M.B.

I thought pretty much all the pre-election polls were projecting 60% of the Indys to vote on the Dem side, and isn't that exactly what happened?

Doesn't this sort of skirt the fact that the polls basically nailed Obama's percentage total?  How is it that he got what he was expected to get when his ostensible constituency was voting on the other slate?

He merely guessed in the same direction. Besides, he places that criteria 6th among 6, in his scramble for an explanation. If he deemed it the most likely rationale, it would have led off.

I don't understand the amazement, or labels of an all-time upset. I've seen bigger upsets among two drunks running for a discarded bottle of booze. The candidate who led for a year ended up winning the state. Wow.

It's like when one team is considered superior for months then suddenly a late injury or aberrational performance suddenly shifts the apparent pecking order on the eve of the game. You'd be shocked how often the long term advantage holds up. It's not really an upset at all. Merely the disguised top dog winning as it always figured to.

Do you really think voters are so flimsy they had no clue until Iowa made up their minds for them? When you've got unprecedented coverage for a primary season, and basically an entire year of campaigning, opinions are going to be locked in place, particularly with someone as well known and polarizing as Hillary. Bounce projections are in the same category as the incumbent rule, which was  thwarted in '04.

Due to a family medical concern I've basically been visiting in a hospital for weeks, but my chief reference points throughout the period have been my two sisters and an aunt. They are apolitical but pro-Hillary this time, and energized. When Obama won Iowa last week, they were baffled more than discouraged. Intrigued by Obama to the point they briefly researched him on the internet, but still very pro-Hillary going into last night. Now they are thrilled and confident again. I realize it's a ridiculously short sample but since they are so decisively apolitical in a normal cycle, I've got to believe they are hardly alone, and Hillary has that trump card working for her across the nation.  

I had read earlier that independents in New Hampshire are much less "free-floating" than in the past.  Now, the strong majority of them are either strong Democratic leaners or strong Republican leaners.  So the number who would go one way or the other is comparatively small.  And the number who would make a last-minute change based on a complex and iffy calculation about whether McCain or Obama had a better chance, is probably even smaller.  (Indeed, I can see the opposite argument being made, i.e., that what appeared to be a surge of support for Obama could in theory have attracted additional independent voters to him, who want to identify with and support a winner).  That's the way positive polls usually work.

The bottom line?  I doubt if Obama lost even dozens of votes due to this reason, let alone hundreds or thousands.

Another factor Zogby didn't really touch on: post-Iowa, I said that exit polling demonstrated the primaries would turn less on issues of gender and race, and more on inter-generational concerns.

The seniors have long been the most dependable voting demographic and hearing the tra-la-la about the young controlling Iowa's outcome, the seniors decided they'd not willingly be marginalized.

That's why they showed up in greater numbers in NH, and it was already known that demographic favored Clinton.

saw ezra klein use it last nightt.  it might account for maybe a 100 votes.  

hillary won by 10,000.  Utter bs.

Absent much solid data, we are prognosticating like proctologists, from the same intimate source. Me too.

My hunch is that people who used to vote for one party but have begun to vote more often for the other party will identify as "independents" during this transition period.

We do have solid data that more people are voting Democratic in New Hampshire, from the Kerry election of '04 and the two House victories and the takeover of the state legislature in '06.

Some of those Democratic-leaning independents may have looked at Hillary, Obama, and Edwards and decided they were all fit to be the Democratic nominee.

Those same voters may have looked at Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Ron Paul and decided that their former party needed help bad. So they went and voted for the least crazy, most conventional, and most traditional Repub in the field.

Those NH independents don't think John McCain is their hero, as Zogby says. They think he's not half as bad as any of the others.  And I look for them to be voting Democratic in the fall.

Here's My analysis:

Open Primary, lackluster republican field.  Republican realize their only hope of winning in November is if the polarizing and widely reviled Clinton is the Dem candidate. So instead of tussling in an increasingly futile republican primary, and after seeing the terrific numbers for Obama, they choose to vote FOR Hillary because she'll be easier to beat.

Screw indie voters...where's the data on how many republicans voted for Hillary?

If the independents in NH switched from Obama to McCain, thus causing Obama to lose votes in the election compared to what the polls predicted, then McCain should have gained votes in the election compared to what the polls predicted.  This isn't what happened, however.  The polls tended to predict McCains performance fairly well, failing only on the Obama-Hillary race.  The data don't support the interpretation.