Open exit poll thread

I always favor more information over less information, so any exit poll info I get my hands on will be posted here. However, please, please, PLEASE read Mark Blumenthal on the inherent uncertainty and limited utility of exit polls (particularly the early ones) before reading further. Hell, read what I wrote about this two years ago (and forgot about until James Joyner linked to it!!). Remember, when you’re looking at exit polls, you’re looking at raw sausage [Wonkette will love that analogy!!–ed.] OK, done with that? Let the rumors, extrapolation, and mindless speculation commence!! 3:00 PM ET: Very strange — Drudge had early figures from the National Election Pool posted. As I was looking at them, the screen refreshed, and poof, they were gone! Fortunately, Jonah Goldberg has posted them — as has Wonkette. Here’s the full set of numbers that have been floating around (first number is Kerry, second is Bush):

Arizona 45-55 Colorado 48-51 Louisiana 42-57 Michigan 51-48 Wisconsin 52-48 Pennsylvania 60-40 Ohio 52-48 Florida 51-48 Michigan 51-47 New Mexico 50-48 Minnesota 58-40 Wisconsin 52-43 Iowa 49-49 New Hampshire 57-41

The raw data has Kerry up by 20 points in Pennsylavania and up by 16 points in New Hampshire. That should tell you the size of the variance in these polls, because there’s just no way Kerry wins by twenty points in Pennsylvania. Drudge says that the “early sample was based on a 59- 41 women to men ratio” — which would partially explain those numbers. [59-41 for which states??!!–ed. Damned if I know — though Cliff May has a silly theory for why this is true.] Jonah adds here:

I’m being told that those Wonkette numbers are absolutely, positively not exit poll numbers. They might be results of early voting “exit” polls (i.e. votes cast over the last two weeks), but they do not track at all the exits for votes cast today. That said, I’m told the exits don’t look great for Bush either. Of course, that changes none of the caveats about exit polls already posted below.

UPDATE: Jonah has more:

Okay. I’ve now got a third source. Here’s what I feel comfortable saying. Those numbers with Kerry leading by 20 in PA were definitely from the Kerry campaign. Whether the represented an early voting tally or just a totally non-serious collection of tallies from various dudes with clipboards is unclear. But they are entirely bogus for the purposes of understanding what’s going on today.

Slate promises to post the numbers on their site, so be sure to check them out on a semi-regular basis. 3:25 PM: Now Wonkette has new numbers (first number is for Kerry):

USA: 50-49 Florida: 50-49 Ohio: 50-49 Colorado: 48-50 New Mexico: 50-48

Those numbers are all way too tight to extrapolate anything for anyone. 4:10 PM: See, this is why I’m glad danieldrezner.com’s audience is so…. selective. 4:20 PM: Slate’s first set of numbers — which appear to be a mixture of morning and early afternoon polls:

Florida Kerry 50 Bush 49 Ohio Kerry 50 Bush 49 Pennsylvania Kerry 54 Bush 45 Wisconsin Kerry 51 Bush 46 Michigan Kerry 51 Bush 47 Minnesota Kerry 58 Bush 40 Nevada Kerry 48 Bush 50 New Mexico Kerry 50 Bush 48 North Carolina Kerry 49 Bush 51 Colorado Kerry 46 Bush 53

4:40 PM: Wonkette has new numbers:

FL: 52/48 – KERRY OH: 52/47 – KERRY MI: 51/48 – KERRY PA: 58/42 – KERRY IA: 50/48 – KERRY WI: 53/47 – KERRY MN: 57/42 – KERRY NH: 58/41 – KERRY ME: 55/44 – KERRY FL: 50/49 – KERRY NM: 49/49 – TIE NV: 48/49 – BUSH CO: 49/50 – BUSH AR: 45/54 – BUSH NC: 47/53 – BUSH

Drudge says, “One block from ground zero in NYC, 2 hour wait to vote…” 5:40: Slate now has the 4 PM exit polls [UPDATE: OK, these have now mysteriously disappeared from their web site — may be due to the problem alluded to by Wonkette’s source below]:

Florida Kerry 52 Bush 48 Ohio Kerry 52 Bush 47 Michigan Kerry 51 Bush 48 Pennsylvania Kerry 58 Bush 42 Iowa Kerry 50 Bush 48 Wisconsin Kerry 53 Bush 47 Minnesota Kerry 57 Bush 42 New Hampshire Kerry 58 Bush 41 Maine Kerry 55 Bush 44 New Mexico Kerry 49 Bush 49 Nevada Kerry 48 Bush 49 Colorado Kerry 49 Bush 50 Arkansas Kerry 45 Bush 54 North Carolina Kerry 47 Bush 53

NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez proffers the following set of numbers at 5:28 PM:

Kerry-Bush FL 50-49 OH 50-49 PA 54-45 WI 51-46 MI 51-47 NH Kerry +3 NV 48-50 CO 46-53 NC 49-51 MO Bush +11

Both Drudge and NRO point out that early exit polls had Gore up in Florida by 3 and that didn’t pan out as expected. This is true — but if memory serves, those same polls had Bush winning the Electoral College pretty easily when you added up states — Bush was winning in Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in the early exit polls of 2000. 5:55 PM: Much discussion of the political exchanges swinging towards Kerry. Check out Brian Weatherson and James Joyner for more. 6:05 PM: According to MSNBC, with “0% of precincts reporting,” it’s 61% to 38% for Bush nationwide!!! Seriously, I have no idea where those numbers are coming from. UPDATE: Kudos to MSNBC for this page, which suggests that they’ll be posting exit polls once the voting officially ends in each state. 6:06 PM: Scott Elliott says that, “My understanding is that exit polling does not include absentee and early voting. That is a very important point, given that as many as 20-30% of voters have already voted in some spots, and just re-emphasizes the worthlessness ofs exit polling.” I don’t think that’s entirely correct — I believe National Election Pool is trying to incorporate early voting, but they’re doing it via phone polls — less reliable than exit polls. Cleck here for more on early voting. 6:15 PM: Wonkette has fresh, hot, supple numbers:

CO Bush 50 Kerry 48 FL Kerry 51 Bush 49 IA Kerry 50 Bush 49 MI Kerry 51 Bush 47 MN Kerry 54 Bush 44 NV tied NH Kerry 53 Bush 45 NJ Kerry 54 Bush 44 NM Kerry 50 Bush 48 OH Kerry 51 Bush 49 OR still too early to get accurate reading PA Kerry 53 Bush 46 WI Kerry 51 Bush 48

Furthermore a source tells her, “There appear be problems with exits in the following states that could be tipping numbers toward kerry: MN, NH, VT, PA, VA, CT, DE. described only as ‘serious’ issues we’re looking at. so i would not put too much faith in those results.” UPDATE: Go check out Noam Scheiber on possible biases in exit polling and what they mean. 6:32 PM: Drudge now has Ohio tied, Kerry up by 2 in Florida and Minnesota, and up by 4 points in Wisconsin. I can’t tell what he’s saying about Pennsylvania, and Bush is up by seven in New Hampshire. FINAL UPDATE: OK, go to this page at CNN or this one at MSNBC for all most exit polling information. I see that the nets are not providing the top-line results — sneaky nets. Slate has the last word on exit polls, though check out this Wonkette post as well.