Could Independent Vote Change NH Outcome For Clark

[Quixote1818]

Politically, the proportion of independents among New Hampshire’s 690,159 registered voters has increased, from 36.5 percent to 37.7 percent. Republican strength has held steady at 36.7 percent but the number of Democrats has dropped, from 27 percent to 25.6 percent. Independents can vote in the primary.


Independent Voters 38%
Democrats 26%

I think this looks good for Clark. All the polls said the Independents were starting to fall his way. Most of the polls are heavily weighted towards Democrats however Independents are a much bigger voting block.

[BootinUp]

1. yes -eom-

[windansea]

2. NH is a swing state

usually goes repub but Clinton won it twice

Clark could be very appealing to these voters

[HereSince1628]

3. Among democrats, the thing this primary is actually about

the recent polls show rougly a 7% shift away from Dean, about equally split to Kerry and Undecided.

Clark and Edwards didn't seem to benefit at all from Dean's backwards slide.

[Quixote1818]

6. ARG shows just the opposit

The ARG which is a profesional poll unlike the others which included Independents shows Clark gaining 3 points from yesterday. It shows all the other candidates stagnant accept Dean droping 7 points.

[windansea]

7. right on Don Q

:kick:

[Quixote1818]

8. I ment the ARG includes independents

I don't know about the others. However the # of independents is not proportionate to the actual %. That could look good for Clark.

[Quixote1818]

11. ARG Independent sample too low

The ARG poll vastly reports on independents. The number of Democrats is 2/3 independents 1/3 Democrats. This should be switched around or at least 50% independent 50% Democrat for the poll to represent independents proportionately.


Democrats 432 436 511 573 558
Undeclared 185 181 207 238 248
Undeclared (%) 30% 29% 29% 29% 31%

[TacticalPeek]

4. I'm guessing his internal polls show him moving up

more than the current public ones.

[in_cog_ni_to]

5. Absolutely. n/t

[maxr4clark]

9. In some states

very few voters register as anything but Independents. I believe Arkansas has an overwhelming majority of voters registered Independents, no matter whether they usually vote for Democrats or not.

Edwards might also do well with Independents. Somebody voted for him in Iowa, almost out of the blue!

You just can't tell.

[damnraddem]

10. A similar question was asked on NPR today.

Could the independent vote pull it out for Lieberman. The pollster noted that although Lieberman did better among independents than among Dems, he was still in single digits. Clark, now that is a question.

[maxanne]

12. not to pee on anyone's parade

But a big chunk of those registered independent voters in NH are Republicans. Clark will appeal to some of them, but plenty of them support their commander in chief, winning the war on terra.