Trust elections, not polls

Super Tuesday is history.  Huckabee and Obama took Alabama, which is no surprise in Obama’s case.  McCain, however, was the projected winner based on the average of all Alabama polls by 4%.  The AEA/Capital Survey poll showed McCain with a 16% lead.  When all the votes were cast Huckabee won by 4%.  Oddly, the race was called for Huckabee early – while he was trailing McCain by 4% in votes counted at the time.  It’s got to take balls to call a race while the projected winner is losing.

Romeny fell short of 20% in Alabama, which means he will receive no delegates from the state.  [Insert sinister laugh]

Elsewhere, in California a recent Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll suggested that Romney had an 8 point lead and Obama had surged ahead by 6 points.  In reality Romney lost by 9 points and Obama lost by 10 – about 16 points different than what the polls suggested.  That, as they say, is why you play the game.

I kind of thought something was amiss in the California polling.  At least one recent poll showed the combined support for Clinton and Obama at just under 80%, with others showing the combined support around 85%.  In a two candidate race there shouldn’t be 15-20% “open” in the last days before votes are cast.

Clearly polls were the big loser yesterday.  Coming in a close second has to be Mitt Romney.  He had to make a stand against McCain if his campaign had any real chance of ever securing the nomination.  Instead he only won six states – three of which he has lived in and had strong built in support.  Huckabee was a pleasant surprise, winning five states and showing strength in the south.  McCain won the evening for the GOP, though, and likely put a stranglehold on the nomination.  I still think that a McCain-Huckabee ticket is likely and would present a very formidable challenge to the would-be Democrat ticket.

Speaking of the Democrats.  Nothing is settled.  Obama won more states yesterday, but Clinton won California.  She has a 825-732 delegate lead over Obama at this time largely due to the “super-delegates.”  Their race could come down to the wire and be settled at the convention.  If the two could put their acrimony behind them they would present a very powerful combined ticket.  Would either have the humility to run as second fiddle, though?  Would Obama be willing to risk his political life to ride shotgun in a Clinton administration?

Back in Alabama…

Total votes cast (with 99% reporting):

• Republicans = 547,142
• Democrats = 533,521

Not a bad showing at all for the Democrats in a deep red state.  Dan painstakingly broke down the Democrat numbers.  To sum up: blacks, poor people, and college students voted for Obama and whites voted for Clinton.  Not surprising that the Democrat vote would split largely along extraneous qualities like race considering the policy differences between the two candidates are scant.  I’d like to see the male/female numbers as well.

Voter turnout in Madison County was heavy and the voters here reflected the voters across the state with Huckabee and Obama hauling in the most votes.

Around the Alabama blogosphere:

• Lee crunches the Republican numbers and looks at Democrat exit polling
• The leftists talk about, what else, the leftist candidates
• Doc’s has links to detailed results
• Kristopher liveblogged – starting at 1:15! (do we have a job?)
• Red State Diaries bulletized observations from the day (Part 1, Part 2)

I’m probably missing some.  Leave me a comment if you want your post added.