Are too many reporters relying on polls and conventional wisdom to judge an unpredictable race?
There were some cases when the polls were wrong, but there were a lot more where they were actually pretty much dead-on. What you want to get from a poll is what people are thinking and what’s driving their decisionmaking. Who’s going to win – that’s the least reliable part of exit polls. It’s all how you use the information, not whether the information itself was faulty. We’re talking just a few hours after Republican Mitt Romney announced he was leaving the race. Does that give Republicans an advantage? Republicans usually do settle faster. On the other hand, every single primary we’ve seen has shown record turnout for Democrats and a passion gap – which shows Democrats far more likely to turn out in greater numbers with far greater enthusiasm for both candidates than we’ve seen on the Republican side. There are so many more Democrats engaged and so many of them are happy if either candidate gets the nomination – the Republicans are going to have to make up that enthusiasm gap. Does
