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Don't Trust California's Exit Polls [CORRECTED]

CORRECTION Feb. 6, 1:05 p.m.: Well, I was wrong. Contrary to my original post, California's exit poll data did include a sample of early voters polled via the phone. From Associated Press' account of the methodology:

There were 17,454 interviews of Democratic primary voters, and 11,205 GOP voters. Results included 1,005 telephone interviews of Democratic absentee voters and 813 GOP absentee voters in Arizona, California and Tennessee. Overall sampling error was plus or minus 1 percentage points for both parties.

We gleaned our information from CNN, which has a misleading exit poll description of its own. What CNN says about their exit polls:

Exit polls are a survey of selected voters taken soon after they leave their voting place. Pollsters use this sample information, collected from a small percentage of voters, to track and project how all voters or a specific segments of the voters sided on a particular race or ballot measure.

No mention of an early voter phone survey. The entire country uses the same exit poll data, which means CNN uses the same data the AP uses, both from Edison Media Research. I spoke to someone in their office who confirmed the AP's account that a poll was conducted by phone with early voters. We regret the error. The original piece is below.

This item was cross-posted at Slate's Election Scorecard.

Poll junkies beware: California exit polls are not to be trusted.

California has issued 5.5 million absentee ballots for today's primary, reaching more than one-third of the 15.7 million total voters registered in the state. As of yesterday, 3 million ballots had already been returned, and state officials expect about 75 percent of the ballots to be returned by the close of polls—that's 4.125 million people who voted without pulling a lever. (These numbers include both Democratic and Republican ballots.) The remaining ballots are expected to be turned in at polling stations today, just like you drop off a movie rental.

For our purposes, it's the 3 million ballots that have already been sent back that may play havoc with expectations tonight. Exit polls, as their name implies, measure only the opinions of residents who go to the polls and submit a ballot. If you don't show up to the voting booth, you're not going to be part of an exit poll.

Conventional wisdom suggests early voters chose Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, since Clinton led in the polls until recently. In the most recent SurveyUSA poll, 34 percent of respondents told the pollster they had already voted, which echoes the predicted vote-by-mail participation rate. Of those voters, 54 percent favored Clinton and 37 percent favored Obama. We should note that SurveyUSA shows a stronger Clinton lead than other polls (Zogby, Rasmussen) released in the last 48 hours.Given all this, exit polls that show a slight lead for Obama actually may be bad news for Barack. If SurveyUSA's poll is correct—no sure thing—then Obama will need a strong lead (around 10 percent) among today's voters to win California.

Blessings, Prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Mike Huckabee rolled into Orange County today for an event inside the gates of Bayview Estates—a development that bills itself as a “Residential and Equestrian neighborhood.” Something tells me this isn’t the target audience for Huckabee’s brand of populism. (Although he did get his biggest round of applause when he started talking about the Fair Tax.) No signs of Mischa Barton yet, but there were some other scenes that only a Huckabee fundraiser can provide:

• A Huck volunteer named Sharon was put in charge of having the media sign-in. After one cameraman said his correspondent had already written their names, Sharon responded with a wide smile: “Bless You.”
• Huckabee was asked about the youth vote by an MTV News correspondent. Mind you that Newport Beach is where that god-awful MTV show Newport Harbor is filmed. Unfortunately, I don’t think Huck watches much MTV, so he didn’t quite note the irony.
• As Huck shook hands and signed autographs, a greasy guy in his mid-20s tried to impress a bronzed mid-20s gal by saying she should go up to Huckabee and ask him to sign her breast, rock-star style. He was kidding. I think.
• One of the older women in the crowd had a red LED ticker pinned to her shirt. Huckabee 2008 slowly crawled across her shirt on an endless loop. I should have introduced her to the breast-autograph guy.
• Before Huckabee gave his stump speech, one of his supporters went on stage to offer an opening invocation. He asked Jesus to give Huckabee strength at tonight’s debate, and he prayed that the American people would come to their senses and support him.
• The entire crowd pledged allegiance to the flag before Huckabee spoke. The person-to-flag ratio in this estate is probably 5-to-1. I counted a few dozen lining the driveway alone.
  

In spite of—or maybe because of—all of this, Huckabee managed to raise 100,000 dollars today. Upon hearing the news Huckabee quipped, “Our campaign is so frugal, we could go a month on that. We probably won’t but we could.” He's exactly right, if only because Huck will probably be out of the race in a month.

Put It in the Banco

SAN DIEGO—A Univision satellite truck was waiting for me as I pulled up to a real-estate and loan office a dozen miles from the Mexican border. A sparse crowd—about 20 people—was schmoozing inside while the correspondent filmed a stand-up in Spanish next to a carefully-taped Hillary sign. The Univision crew was the only broadcast media outlet to show up (and one of only three journalists overall), but I got the sense that the Hillary camp didn’t care. The second Univision showed up, their goal had been accomplished.

The event was essentially a glorified phone bank, focusing specifically on Latino voters. In reality, the event wasn’t much of an event, nor was it all that Latino-focused. Volunteers showed up, they got to meet other Hillary-philes, and they called a bunch of laymen (who may or may not have been Latino) to convince them to vote for Hillary on Tsunami Tuesday. Dozens of these phone banks take place in the state every day (there are three in San Diego, alone). That Univision decided to package a story about such a non-event was a coup for the CCC (Clinton California Campaign) because the story will show that the Clinton campaign cares about the Latino community—and that they don’t take that support for granted.

All of this matters because Obama has a Latino problem and Clinton knows it. Clinton more than doubled Obama’s Latino support in Nevada and doubled his number in the maybe-meaningless Florida results. But Obama isn’t giving up. He’s airing aggressive Spanish-language ads here (as is Clinton), and some journalists bored with the Latinos-like-Clinton storyline are now suggesting Ted Kennedy’s endorsement will magically attract Latinos to Obama. We’re doubtful that’s true, but that’s another post for another time.

This minor phone bank may seem like an inconsequential effort to court Latino voters compared to thousand-person rallies—but it’s not. Because all of the candidates’ schedules are so accelerated, Clinton can’t personally spend time with Latino families like she might have done if California was an early primary state. Instead she—and the rest of the campaigns—have to entrust staffers and volunteers to carry the mantle and the message. 

In the Feb. 5 states, more votes will be earned while the candidate isn’t in town than when he or she is. The candidates set the agenda nationally and then the grassroots follow-through locally. It’s a pointillistic approach: When viewed individually, the small events seem like inconsequential dots; but when you zoom out it’s clear that they’re all part of a larger painting. And when a Spanish-language TV station gives a Latino dot its close-up, it makes the overall message even more defined.