A number of polls now show Clinton and Obama in a dead heat in California. But a number of you have written in to note that large vast numbers of the states voters have already cast their ballots, and that they did so when Clinton still held a substantial lead. The Christian Science Monitor recently quoted a state election official who believes that just under half the votes in the state will be cast early. In other words, a substantial proportion of this election will have been ‘held’ when Clinton was way ahead. So a poll taken today doesn’t give you a full picture; indeed, it may be substantially distorted in Obama’s favor.
But don’t be so sure. I have not looked at the methodologies yet of the various California polls. But the same issue arose in Florida. And when I looked into how the pollsters were doing their surveys they were taking this into account. They were asking some form of who will you vote for or who did you vote for if you’ve already voted.
I would certainly assume they’re doing the same thing in California. (If anyone can point me to specific information about the questions for the California polls, please let me know.)
Now, looking back, McCain did seem to outperform his late poll numbers, if only by a couple points. And my recollection is that the tie it looked like going into election day was based on Romney’s late surge whereas McCain had been up in much of the early voting period. So it’s possible that may be evidence of a early voting effect skewing the numbers. But the polls were bouncing around a lot at the end. And it’s at least as likely that it’s just the polls getting close to the mark but not quite there.
In any case, the point is, if you’re figuring that early voting will skew tomorrow’s numbers. Don’t be so sure. The pollsters know about early voting too and I believe they’re taking steps to factor that in.
