My Day of Depressing Exit Polling In Nevada
The Neocon Express just spent a depressing 3 hours conducting an exit poll at a Las Vegas early voting station. The Location was in a more affluent Western suburb of Las Vegas, on the edge of Summerlin; More specifically, at the Vons shopping center on Rampart, between Charleston and Sahara. It was a glorious day in Las Vegas so what better way to spend a few hours than by hanging outside a polling station and randomly sampling voters, right?
Nevada is a swing state, and the middle to upper middle class suburbs of Las Vegas, like this location, are a crucial indicator of how the state might go. Early voting started at this location yesterday and the lines have been long and non-stop all day, with people waiting in line an average of 45 minutes to cast their votes.
I randomly interviewed over 150 voters after they cast their ballots. I stood outside with a clipboard and certainly looked the part of a pollster. My question went like this: “Hi, I am conducting a quick, random exit poll; of course all participants are anonymous. Was it John McCain or Barack Obama for you?”
I could not possibly have talked to everyone who voted during the three hour time frame but I got a very good random sample. The results were devastating to me.
Let’s get to the results:
Obama: 70%
McCain: 26%
Other 4%
If I calculate the number of people who declined to give an answer, than the breakdown went like this:
Obama 53%
McCain 20%
Other 3%
Declined to participate: 24%.
My gut instinct tells me that the vast majority of those who “declined to participate” were McCain supporters, but of course, I have no way of knowing that for sure.
These were not just registered voters, or even a likely-voter sampling, these were actual voters who had already cast their ballots and were interviewed as they walked outside the polling place in a relatively affluent, and a relatively white area of Las Vegas. One would expect this area to be far tighter, with perhaps a small advantage to McCain.
The results of this poll could reflect a number of things, but one thing that it certainly reflects is a greater degree of enthusiasm on the part of Obama supporters who are rushing to the polls early, eager to cast their ballot. About 15 percent of those interviewed were African Americas, and not a single African American I interviewed voted for McCain, and a number thought I was crazy for even asking “Obama or McCain?” One African American lady later returned to me to apologize for scoffing at the idea that I even asked her about McCain. She assured me that she voted for Obama “because he was the best man, not because of his race.”
Anyway, that's how I spent three hours of my weekend and as a McCain supporter, it was deeply depressing. McCain will need to carry rural and Northern Nevada by a wide margin to overcome what will certainly be a devastating lose in Clark County.
Joe Gelman
http://neoconexpress.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-day-of-exit-polling-in-nevada.html 
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