Andrea Mitchell noted this morning that last night for the first half-hour after the polls closed in Pennsylvania, exit polls pointed to 5 point Obama win. She relayed how she got a few anxious e-mails from Clinton supporters asking her if she knew anything. She didn’t but as soon as the precincts started reporting it was clear that an Obama win was not in the cards. As it turned out, Clinton won by a comfortable 10 point margin so that’s a 15 point differential between the exit polls and the results.
This is not the first time that the exit polls have overstated Obama’s position so what’s going on? The first possibility is that the sample is skewed and that the pollsters simply haven’t figure out the right mix demographically. The second is that the Bradley Effect has already begun to show up. It’s likely a mix of both obviously but I would put more weight on the first. They are angry people in Pennsylvania. They are called white women over 50 and earning under $50,000. I haven’t seen how this group voted but I wouldn’t be surprised if it went 4:1 for Clinton. Overall, 66% of white women voted for Clinton. There’s no way in hell that Obama can woo back this demographic. And he seems to be losing his aura of invicibilty in those latte-sipping burbs. The suburban vote has to be especially discouraging for Obama. It looks like Obama can’t close the deal in a place where he has to close to win come November. Couple that with rural voters and McCain has himself an Inaugural Parade on January 20, 2009.
The argument for Clinton now is clearly an electoral college map argument. It’s also one that super delegates are bound to understand. Though they perhaps wish that this nomination were signed, sealed and delivered if they look inside the numbers from yesterday, they’ll be glad they still have Hillary as an option. If Gore had fought as hard as Clinton is fighting now, Bush would have never been President.