The Wisconsin exit poll evidently reported the race for governor in the recall ballot as 50%-50%. With 92% of the vote in, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s excellent website reports
the score as 54%-46% Walker. Let’s say that’s the final results: only
13% of precincts from Milwaukee County and 3% of precincts from
Madison’s Dane County—the Democrats’ two reservoirs of big
majorities—remain uncounted. It has been emblazoned on mainstream media
that the exit poll also showed Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney in the
state 51%-45%. But if you think the exit poll was 4% too Democratic—and
that’s in line with exit poll discrepancies with actual vote results
over the last decade, as documented by the exit poll pioneer, the late
Warren Mitofsky*—that result looks more like 49%-47% Romney. Or assume
the remaining Milwaukee County precincts whittle Republican Governor
Scott Walker’s margin over Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to
53%-47%, which looks likely, the Obama-Romney numbers would look like
48%-48%.
This is in a state that Obama carried 56%-42% in 2008. But those putative numbers also look very much like the numbers in 2000, when Al Gore carried Wisconsin 47.8%-47.6% over George W. Bush, or the numbers in 2004, when John Kerry carried Wisconsin 49.7%-49.3% over Bush.
Turnout was high in Wisconsin, at least 7% above that in the November 2010 general election. Which leads me to this conclusion: Wisconsin is very much in play in November. And Scott Walker’s victory will not, to say the least, hurt Mitt Romney.
*Mitofsky found that the biggest WPE, Within Precint Error, where exit poll results tilted most heavily toward Democrats compared ithe actual vote, were in precincts where the interviewers were female graduate students. Go figure.
This is in a state that Obama carried 56%-42% in 2008. But those putative numbers also look very much like the numbers in 2000, when Al Gore carried Wisconsin 47.8%-47.6% over George W. Bush, or the numbers in 2004, when John Kerry carried Wisconsin 49.7%-49.3% over Bush.
Turnout was high in Wisconsin, at least 7% above that in the November 2010 general election. Which leads me to this conclusion: Wisconsin is very much in play in November. And Scott Walker’s victory will not, to say the least, hurt Mitt Romney.
*Mitofsky found that the biggest WPE, Within Precint Error, where exit poll results tilted most heavily toward Democrats compared ithe actual vote, were in precincts where the interviewers were female graduate students. Go figure.
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