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January 08, 2008
N.H. Dem story: women, independents
Posted by: Chris
UPDATE: At the end of the post.
A combination of factors, of course, may be responsible for Hillary Clinton's surprisingly strong showing in early returns out of New Hampshire. Most important is the gender gap: women went for Clinton over Barack Obama by 40 to 36 percent, while men went for Obama over Clinton, 44 to 24 percent. (Clinton lost to Obama even among women in Iowa, 35 to 30 percent.)
Also telling, a significant number of New Hampshire voters decided at the last minute -- 15 percent of Democrats -- which would explain how the election results may differ from poll results showing Barack Obama with a lead almost in double digits.
Obama again claimed the independent vote, which made up 43 percent of voters in the Democratic Primary. Exit polls show that independents went 45 percent for Obama, 26 percent for Hillary, and 19 percent for Edwards.
Obama's appeal to independents is obviously an important advantage for the general election, which is why N.H. exit polls show voters in the Democratic primary thought he was more electable than Hillary, 47 to 37 percent. But to get there he has to win the party's nomination, obviously, and electability was not the most important factor in New Hampshire.
Obama may also have been hurt by independent voters who decided to vote in the Republican Primary for John McCain, who was seen to be in a tougher fight with Mitt Romney. On the GOP side, independents also made up about 40 percent of the GOP primary, breaking dramatically for John McCain over Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
UPDATE: I'm sticking with this initial analysis of where things went right for Hillary.
Also, CNN reports that a majority of New Hampshire voters cited "change" as the most important factor in the election, and those voters picked Obama over Clinton by a whopping 26 percentage points. But Clinton got lopsided support from those who listed experience or "cares about people" as the most important, by margins of 65 and 21 points, respectively.
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Comments
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Second Hillary's tears definitely helped among women. That was my fear the moment I saw the video of it on the news.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Andoni on Jan 8, 2008 10:33:07 PM:
My theory:
More Independents decided to vote on the Republican side to help McCain, because all the polls showed Obama surging and winning big. They figured he didn't their help, but McCain did. Remember although McCain was up, the polls showed Romney beginning to gain some ground back.
Second Hillary's tears definitely helped among women. That was my fear the moment I saw the video of it on the news.