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The morning after most who paid attention are left with certain unanswered questions. Namely:

How did Clinton win New Hampshire?

and, how did the polls get it so wrong?

The first answer is explained by most of the exit polling. Despite independents showing up in large numbers (44% of all the Dem primary voters) with 41% of them voting for Obama vs. 31% for Clinton, Democrats went decisively for Clinton (45%-34%). This, along with Hillary winning woman (46%-34%), who account fo 57% of the primary’s voters, propelled her to the top.

As for the second question, no one really knows why the polls go it so wrong. The problem is, any explanation must account for the systematic error of the polling, because all of the New Hampshire polls had Obama winning. Additionally, the polls were completely accurate predicting the GOP race, so that throws another wrench into the equation. It suggests that problem was not with the pollsters, but with the voters. Meaning, many decided at the last moment for Clinton, or many changed their minds.

Hopefully, this mystery will be solved in due time.

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The What the hell happened in New Hampshire?! by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.