What do the Nevada entrance polls show about how Hillary won?
Entrance polls vs. official results
O'Bill passed me the link to the
entrance polls for the Nevada caucuses yesterday, so I was looking at those now.
To recap, the entrance polls measured the first preference of the participants of the caucus as they arrived. Whom they came in to vote for. Of course, during the caucusing process, those who had come in to support a candidate who turned out not to be viable had to regroup behind another candidate, and in turn the percentages in the official results refer to the percentage of delegates eventually accorded to each candidate in the different caucuses. So thats why the topline numbers in the entry polls are different from the official results; but they might better represent the caucusers' actual first preferences.
Unfortunately, the entry poll doesnt, for some reason, provide the top line totals, so you have to calculate those from the numbers by gender. And doing so the first thing that strikes you, as mentioned above, is that almost three out of five caucusers were women.
Anyway, I arrive at the following topline numbers: Clinton 48%, Obama 41%, Edwards 8%, Kucinich 1%, Uncommitted 2%. So that suggests that in the course of realignment, the Edwards/Kucinich/Uncommitted group dropped byabout 6-7 points, which went 2:1 to Obama (who gained 4 points) over Clinton (who gained 2).
Demographic breakdown: the differences that weren't
The interesting part in these entry polls is how the numbers break down by demographics. See my post about how they broke down for the Democrats
in Iowa and (in more general terms)
New Hampshire. There's something markedly different about the Nevada numbers: there's not a whole lot of variation by different constituency, period.
Support for the candidates is pretty evenly spread by income, for example, with only a slight bias towards Hillary among lower-income groups and towards Obama among higher-income groups. Same with ideology: Hillary's lead over Obama is largest among the one in five caucusers who declared themselves "very liberal", but otherwise it's all evenly spread. Urban, suburban or rural, union household or not; none of it made a lot of difference. This is starkly different from results in the other states so far, where all these distinctions showed big differences.
Demographics: The differences that did add up
There are a few differences that stand out though. Gender, for example, but specifically the intersection between gender and race - just like it was outlined in that CNN poll I posted above. Among women overall, Clinton led Obama by 13; among men, she trailed by 2. But the problem for Obama pops up more starkly when you introduce race: among
white women, Clinton led by 24 - 55% against 31% for Obama.
Among white men, Clinton led by 6. This kind of thing is important to remember if someone points out that Obama lost the white vote in Nevada by 18 points; his disadvantage among white men seems wholly overcomeable; it's white women, specifically, who pose the problem.
Age also keeps playing an important role, with the numbers for Hillary and Obama again mirroring each other almost perfectly. Obama's score went up to 59% among 18-29 year olds, and down to 31% among 65+ers; vice versa, Clinton's score was as low as 33% among the youth, but went up to 60% among those over 65.
Latinos went for Clinton over Obama by a massive 64% to 24%. She also won the small Jewish vote with a 42 point margin.
I already mentioned the role of the debate: two thirds of the caucusers said it had been very or somewhat important, and among those, Hillary led Obama by 12 points. Whereas among the quarter of the caucusers who said it hadnt been too important, Obama led by 7. Did Obama really do so badly in the debate?
On a related count, the timing of when the caucusers made up their mind seems important. Obama easily led Hillary among those who made up their mind last month or last week. Hillary's victory on the other hand depended on two opposite groups: 1) those who made up their mind before last month already and didnt waver - about half of the electorate, among whom she led Obama by a whopping 25 points; 2) those who only made up their mind on the day of the caucus - about one tenth of the electorate, who went for Hillary over Obama by 48% to 36%.
Other tidbits: Clinton easily defeated Obama among those citing the economy or health care as their priority, by 9 and 12 points respectively; Obama edged out Hillary among those citing Iraq. That should be bad news for Obama. Clinton won by 12 points among Democrats; Obama won by 14 points among Indies. Obama won massively among those most looking for a candidate who "can bring change", but was equally massively defeated among those looking for experience. He also was edged out by 7 points among those looking for a candidate who "cares about people". Intriguingly, Obama held his own against Hillary among Protestant caucusers (45/46), but trailed Clinton by 27 points among Catholics (what's up with that?). Obama won Reno by 14; Hillary won Vegas by 14.
ABBA? Now you have to like him just a little bit more...
