Friday, February 15, 2008

More Numbers

They say numbers don't lie, but they sure can argue with each other. We gave you some numbers earlier today showing Hillary is ahead by 8 points (49-41) in Texas in the latest opinion poll, but along now comes this survey from the American Research Group showing Obama up 48 to 42 percent. Why the difference?

The new poll attributes Obama’s surge to self-described independents and Republicans who said they plan to vote in the Democratic primary. Those voters amounted to 22 percent of respondents and went for Obama almost 3-to-1. This is a demographic that helped fuel Obama wins in previous primaries, exit polls have shown.

Among Democrats, Clinton topped Obama 47 percent to 42 percent, the poll found.

I'm guessing the poll we linked to earlier took into account only confirmed Democrats voting in the primary (though it's not exactly clear) as those numbers mirror more closely the 47-42 percent in this poll.

Still, the general conclusion one can take from all this is that Obama is very close, and with the momentum in his direction, an upset in Texas is within his reach.

2 comments:

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

My query regards how are they polling in the cell phone age. Do they use cell phones, or text messaging? after NH, im leary of any numbers

Alexander Wolfe said...

I think they still stick to land lines. Which I guess provides enough random numbers to make the polls work statistically, though I wonder how long that's going to last.