Tuesday, January 29, 2008

HORSERACE

First (?) Wave of Florida Exits, Revealed

The first wave of exit poll numbers, including absentees: McCain 34.3 percent, Romney 32.6 percent, Giuliani 15.3 percent, Huckabee 12 percent.

UPDATE: Interestingly a second source — yes, guardians of the exit poll data, I have not one but two spies within your ranks! — tells me these are the "second wave" numbers. Also, this source heard these numbers DON'T include the absentee voters.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Adam notes, "I also noticed the political trading markets pop a bit toward Romney right after 5 o'clock. Romney had been trading in the high 30s and now he's mid-40s."

He also noted some items from the AP writeup of the non-candidate questions:

Given four choices, nearly half of Florida Republican primary voters said the economy is the most important issue facing the country. Terrorism, Iraq and immigration each were picked by fewer than two in 10. The economy also was the top issue out of three choices for voters in the Democratic primary, which none of the candidates contested because of questions over whether Florida's Democratic delegates will be seated. The economy has been seen as increasingly important since the start of the 2008 presidential nomination season.

Eight in 10 Republican primary voters were white and a little more than one in 10 were Hispanic — about half of whom were of Cuban heritage. There were few blacks on the GOP side. In the Democratic primary, two-thirds were white, about one in five were black and a little more than one in 10 were Hispanic.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Campaign Spot reader Jonathan writes in with a fascinating observation:

The markets on Romney, at least on intrade, popped up when you posted the links to the small exit polls, and then dropped significantly when you posted the larger exit poll data.  Romney is still down, on average, from where he was throughout the day.  I think, no joke, your posts can affect intrade.

Ha! The power!

Let's test this. Uh, um, the latest round of exit polls have Fred Thompson in the lead, because of all the early voting*...

*I made that up.

01/29 05:26 PMShare