Here is the thread for Indiana exit polls and election results for the Indiana primary. We will live-blog throughout the day on May 6th, 2008 for the Democrat primary so use this thread to start the dialog. Winners will be posted as soon as we can make the call.
Indiana Exit Polls
(Primary Exit Polls and Results)
72 delegates will be divided by Clinton and Obama.
We expect Hillary Clinton to carry this state handily but the voters may have other ideas on their mind. As has been noted by our brilliant commenters on various election threads, Indiana is not that much different from Ohio or Pennsylvania demographically speaking.
As we await the Democrat primary results, see the final campaign videos thanks to Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice who can always be counted on for brilliant analysis
We will give you the data and make the call before any of the major news sources. They will keep you hanging for ratings, while we will give you the facts just as early as they are known.
Here are the polls on election eve:
Indiana Polls
All of the latest pre-election polls are here, a sampling of which is below. Ignore Zogby.
Suffolk (May 3-4):
Hillary Clinton 49%
Barack Obama 43%Survey USA (May 2-4):
Hillary Clinton 54%
Barack Obama 42%Zogby (May 3-4):
Hillary Clinton 42%
Barack Obama 44%Insider Advantage (Apr. 30 - May 1):
Hillary Clinton 47%
Barack Obama 40%Downs Center (Apr. 28-30):
Hillary Clinton 52%
Barack Obama 45%Rasmussen (Apr. 29):
Hillary Clinton 46%
Barack Obama 41%
May 6th, 2008 Live-blogging Updates:
Indiana exit poll data (Democrat):
(Updated throughout the day)
Update 11am EST - The poll of polls on election day has Hillary Clinton +5 which is an improvement from last week. Due to polling bias, we expect Hillary to win by 7-14 points without even looking at the early polling data. See the prediction model here.
Update 1pm - Reports that Republicans are cross-over voting in “droves” are overstated. Extremely heavy voting everywhere as expected so don’t read anything into the turnout numbers yet.
Update 2pm - Reports of robocalls that are targeting Obama in Indiana, automated phone calls that are apparently illegal in the state (checking on accuracy). Further controversy: The Secretary of State purged over a million names from the voter rolls. Obama blogs are playing this news up today as if it were more than a routine removal of voters who had died, were duplicated, or who moved.
Update 3pm - Indiana reports that about 159,000 people have cast early ballots in Indiana.
Ace of Spades has the latest polls.Update 4pm - 2/3 say economy most important factor. Only 19% say Iraq. Of those who say the economy has affected them, Hillary leads by 53%. Put two and two together. Hillary is winning handily as expected in Indiana. See opening comment this morning. Black vote is 1/7.
Early data coming. Remember that early exit poll data is faulty and unreliable as proven in contest after contest. The statisticians need to normalize the numbers before you can make bold statements with them.
Update 9pm (ET) - Hillary did not win Indiana with the margins that she had hoped for. What does that mean for the campaign? Is Hillary through? Will she continue her argument that she is getting the popular vote or is that argument getting thin?
Update 10pm (ET) - Fox, MSNBC and CNN have not called Indiana. Lake County, Indiana is still only has 0% reported. Lake County is the home of Gary, Indiana (suburb of Chicago). Some of the television pundits seem to be enthusiastically expecting that Obama will pull it out with a sweep of Lake County.
Update 10:40pm (ET) - Hillary apparently reads Right Pundits and knows that RP called Indiana for her and is now calling Indiana for herself. She’s giving a victory speech. She has related to the crowd that Obama said himself that she would take Pennsylvania, he would take North Carolina and Indiana would be the tie-breaker. She’s saying she has come from behind, broken the tie and is on the road to the White House.
Continue this evening’s primary results discussion.
Published exit poll data.
Indiana Primary Results (Democrats):
6:50 PM EST - Right Pundits declares Hillary Clinton the winner of the Indiana primary. Expect result to mirror earlier guidance.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Clintons wins in a squeaker 51-52 to 47-48.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Clinton 54-46…possibly even bigger.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Clinton by 10+
May 6th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Day of the primary, and still no word from the NEWS about the pending court case in CA concerning Clinton’s illegal fundraising from Peter Paul; see the video on the internet. Still no word about Hillary’s involvement with Chinese government re: contributions to Bill and Hillary’s campaigns, jobs lost (in Indiana she blamed Bush, but it was Bill’s Chinese friends buying and transferring company to China!). How can you say you’re against NAFTA when your husband will provide the political connections straight to the White House for circumventing the law? How can you say you’re going to “be tough” on China when their Chinese business friends have been one of your biggest contributors?
Ever wonder what happened to the Whitewater scandals? Bill bargained with the prosecutor to drop the charges if he fessed up about lying to the investigation about Monica!!! He and Hillary defaulted senior citizens on loans after 30 days and resold land many times over to make millions! .
Help stop the Clinton machine from creating a dynasty, “made in China.”
May 6th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Hillary is going to win by 7-9% in Indiana. Drudge has a story saying that Clinton internals have her losing NC by 15%+. I do not by this….I suspect they are trying to raise Obama expectations in NC, so they look good when he only wins by 4-5%.
C-Lo
May 6th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Judy, we’ve all known the Clintons were crooks and liars for years. The media didn’t cover that kind of stuff in the 90s, I don’t expect them to start now. Welcome to the life of media bias.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:07 am
C-Lo says: “Drudge has a story saying that Clinton internals have her losing NC by 15%+. I do not by this….I suspect they are trying to raise Obama expectations in NC, so they look good when he only wins by 4-5%.”
That number is not all that out of range. Based on history of voting from all prior primaries:
Black voters in NC = 1/3 or more (assume 1/3)
90% for Obama = 0.9X1/3 = 30% of total vote
40% of rest for Obama = 0.4X2/3 = 26.7%
Total Obama = 56.7%, Total Hillary = 43.3%
Net margin = Obama by 13.4%
May 6th, 2008 at 5:10 am
P.S.:
I’m not saying Obama will win by 13.4%, just that don’t form negative opinion of Clinton based on their 15% internals.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Bon:
What happens when you ASSUME…you make an ASS out of U, and ME!
May 6th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Speak for yourself.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:46 am
It was a very sad day at the Kentucky Derby but could it be a metaphor for this primary day?
May 6th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Why does this blog instruct one to ignore Zogby? Zogby’s questionable in accuracy, but not any more than most of those others are.
My expectations:
Indiana - push, with no more than 2% separation
North Carolina - Obama by 8-10%
May 6th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Indiana prediction: Clinton by 3.5 (51.75 to 48.25)
May 6th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Zogby has been pretty bad thus far. Interesting article (and blog, in general) here: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/obamas-favorite-pollsters-and-clintons.html
May 6th, 2008 at 6:07 am
I remember, back in 2004, Zogby predicted (actually announced) that Kerry will be the next President based on their exit polling data.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Bradley,
Zogby has 0 creditability since his 04 exit polls had Kerry winning by a landslide. Until he proves otherwise, I will consider his polls to be worthless junk. His methodology is also a sham but I don’t have enough time or space to get into all of those issues.
As for Indiana, despite what Democrat John Zogby (I steal that term from my friend David Wissing at The Hedgehog Report) thinks, I am beginning to think that Hillary will win by 8 to 10 points. Bascially IN is like OH with an even greater emphasis on the ex-burbs.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:25 am
MDefl,
Generally, I’m inclined to agree. But also remember that much of the western parts of Indiana are more like Wisconsin and Iowa — where Obama won what were, relatively speaking, surprise victories. Additionally, some of the most populous areas of the state are in the Chicago media market, which is an Obama advantage.
I still think HRC takes IN, but that it’ll likely be in the sub-5 point range.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:26 am
There is a constant in this race that whoever has held an established lead in a State ends up winning the state by a larger than expected margin. Though polls always show the challenger gaining and foreshadow an upset, it ends up the established leader wins. I think that this should be a caution for HRC today. Both in IN and NC Obama held leads and these are the first states that she has had to come back in and I think the polls may overestimate her strength…particularly in late deciders who often fall back to default which is the established leader.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:33 am
kjob,
All bets are off due to Rev Wright. The dynamic has changed and HRC has had her best weeks of the campaign. It should have even been better - the Bosnia fantasy hurt her. Also, she picked up more ground in IN due to her strong appearance on O’Reilly. He will win NC but not by the margins that he should. He is going to lose IN by a significant margin.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:35 am
There is a link on thepage.time.com to suffolk. Suffolk shows Clinton winning Indiana by 7 points. They did a auto dial in Delaware county that they believe confirms their 7 point win — called the auto dial “surprisingly accurate”. As Delaware County goes, so does the state. Or so they say.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:38 am
MSNBC just had a field reporter in Lafayette who reported that a lot of white voters there were actually voting for Obama. He said earlier this week there was a sense that they were going 2-1 for HRC…but today he saw a lot of “Anybody but Hillary” bumper stickers on trucks and spoke to one woman who was voting against HRC, and another man who was voting for Obama because he saw him as weaker against McCain. Of course, this is not a scientific sample but worthy of noting.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:39 am
I have a cousin in Indy that said that Ann Jordan is in town. Could this end for Hillary?
May 6th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Is it a stupid question if I ask who Ann Jordan is?
May 6th, 2008 at 6:45 am
MSNBC is clearly pro-Obama. HRC wins IN by a comfortable margin. There is simply no way that Obama can win that state given his recent stumbles.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I don’t know who Ann Jordan is either.