May 9, 2008 - West Virginia Democratic Primary Preference

Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama 57% to 27% among men (43% of likely Democratic primary voters). Among women, Clinton leads 72% to 20%.

Clinton leads 70% to 19% among white voters (93% of likely Democratic primary voters). Obama leads 91% to 3% among African American voters (5% of likely Democratic primary voters).

Clinton leads 61% to 27% among voters age 18 to 49 (47% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Clinton leads 72% to 19% among voters age 50 and older.

13% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary and 45% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary.

For details, click on the R or D for each state in the column on the left under 2008 Presidential Polls.

The model got it right?

Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com declares in his weekly column for NationalJournal.com that the regression model developed by Poblano of fivethirtyeight.com correctly predicted the 2-point margin in the Democratic presidential primary results from Indiana.

But, surprisingly, Mark fails to look at the projections on which the margin was based. Those projections clearly show, as was the case for Pennsylvania, that the model failed to come close to accurately predicting the actual turnout.

The model underestimated the actual turnout by over 37% (it was off by over 38% in Pennsylvania) and the difference over the actual by candidate has Obama up 4,349 votes over Clinton.

We will never know what the projected margin would have been if the model accurately predicted the turnout, but looking at the difference by candidate suggests it would have underestimated the vote for Obama.

The model was wrong, but it happened to get the 2-point margin right. Poblano's models continue to fail at something she or he confidently claims to be "really quite predictable" - this time by 346,337 votes.

--Dick Bennett

April 21, 2008

George W. Bush's overall job approval rating is holding steady at 22% while 68% of Americans say the national economy is in a recession and 54% say their personal financial situations are getting worse. Details from the nationwide survey conducted April 16-19 are available at The National Economy.

ARG's Electoral Vote Calculator has been updated to reflect the 2004 results. Assign states to the Republican or Democrat for 2008 and watch it calculate the electoral votes for president at Electoral Vote Calculator.

Why doesn't most advertising work? Take a look at 10 Rules for More Effective Advertising.

See your out-of-conscious processing system at work and learn how to improve your marketing and advertising efforts by understanding the power behind the Scintillating Grid.

The margins of error reported for most polls underestimate the actual margins of error for ballot estimates from the same samples. Use the Ballot Lead Calculator to determine if the lead for any survey is statistically significant.

The New Hampshire Poll:

Results from the March 2008 Quarterly New Hampshire Poll are available at The New Hampshire Poll. NH residents rate NH business conditions, their personal finances, John Lynch, and George W. Bush.