10th 11th 13th 14th Obama 45 46 47 47 Clinton 41 42 43 42 Undecided 14 12 10 11First, there's not been a discernible movement for either candidate. To go from a 4 point to a 5 point lead over 4 days, with 2 days of having a 4 point lead in-between, means the margin is pretty static. The number of undecideds has down-ticked a bit, but its still quite large. In fact, it's the undecideds that point toward the great mystery in this race-- who they will break for in the end; and, there's also opportunity in Wisconsin for movement among the candidates-- especially in the last 3 days.
Just look at the 2004 polls. None of them show Edwards in the picture. The primary was on Feb 15th. On the 14th, Zogby had it Kerry-Dean-Edwards at 47-23-20. On the 12th, ARG had it Kerry-Edwards-Dean at 56-16-11, and there were other earlier polls. The actual result was Kerry-Edwards-Dean at 40-34-18, but for a long time in the evening, I recall, it looked like Edwards had pulled off an upset. Only later in the night did Kerry pull a way a bit, after the big city returns came in.
How Edwards surged was that --looking in the exit polls-- 40% of the voters made up their mind in the last 3 days before the election, and they broke to Edwards by more than 50 percent, most switching from either Dean or Kerry to Edwards. Here was the post-election WI wrap of '04:
"My question to Wisconsin is, 'Who do you want to stand with you in the foxhole, the guy who'll stand up when it's right or the guy who just stands up when it's popular?'" Dean said, repeatedly disparaging Edwards and Kerry as "Washington insiders."
But the former governor never regained ground, finishing third in the state primary. He ended his presidential bid a day later.
Edwards stopped short of calling Wisconsin his own must-win state, and although he did not campaign there much until the week before the primary, he apparently realized he might have a chance for a good showing.
Going back further, but here's a great read on the '88 race, that Chris Bowers posted, in the NYT's. Going in, Jackson was coming off of a bunch of wins in the south, and campaigned hard against Dukakis. The turnout was over a million voters, which I think will be bested this year (~850K turned out in '04):
Democrats in Wisconsin, backed by the findings of polls, said that Mr. Jackson failed in the final days of the campaign as voters focused on him not as a civil rights leader who gave moving speeches about the dispossessed, but as a potential Democratic nominee and President.
The New York Times/CBS News Poll, for example, showed that Mr. Jackson did much worse among voters who decided on their choice in the final four days of the campaign than among those who said they had decided earlier. Mr. Jackson won only 20 percent of the late decider's, as against 31 percent of those who said they had made their minds up before Saturday.
Movement toward Edwards, and away from Dean & Kerry in the final weekend of '04; movement toward Dukakis and away from Jackson in the final weekend of '88. I don't think either of those races tell us much about whether Clinton or Obama gets the movement, but it's highly likely that one of them will.
The other thing I was trying to look into, but have come up pretty inconclusive so far on, is looking at the '08 exit polls in states that have already voted, preferably a primary. Maybe it's like Iowa, but with a primary instead of a caucus, and about 5% more African-Americans.
Wisconsin is a very savvy primary state, and they have the potential to move in hordes, a few days before the vote.
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