"Now I know why they call this the Granite State," said candidate Bob Dole eight years ago after losing a Republican primary in the state for the second time. "It's so hard to crack."
Dole's assessment is as true for pollsters as for the candidates in New Hampshire, where bad methodology, bad timing or simply bad luck have produced some of the most memorable miscues in the annals of polling. Consider these flubs:
In 2000, the headline on an AP day-before-the-primary story was "Nearing the N.H. finish line; Polls declare GOP dead heat. . . . " John McCain then went on to beat George W. Bush by 18 percentage points.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41186-2004Jan23?language=printerKrishna Krishna, Hare Hare ... Attention, Zogby Crack addicts: WaPo's Morin and Deane contribute a highly useful explanation of why it's dangerous to bank on New Hampshire tracking polls. I'll let the Mystery Pollster blog it:
They hit two timely and important topics:
1) The poor history of NH tracking surveys in predicting the final result, especially in 2000
2) Why real pollsters distrust Zogby. The money quote from Warren Mitofsky: "Zogby is not a reputable pollster...He is more a salesman and a self-promoter than a pollster. He has made lots of mistakes on election outcomes -- five in 2002." ...
http://slate.msn.com/id/2094126/
I think the most important caution for observers this time around: New Hampshire has a history of very rapid change in the last 24 hours or so that tracking polls miss. My memory of 1984 was that the final Monday night tracking poll had Hart and Mondale running dead even. As you'll recall, Hart did a bit better than that.
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