by Frank James
So much for the Obama wave.
The Associated Press and CNN have projected Sen. Hillary Clinton the winnner of the New Hampshire Democratic primary with more than 70 percent of the precincts reporting, with Clinton holding a three percentage point lead, 39 percent to 36 percent for Sen. Barack Obama.
Clinton’s lead has held steady all night with Obama never breaking above 37 percent. Exit polls indicate she did significantly better with women in New Hampshire than in Iowa. And she also received stronger support than Obama did from older voters as well as blue-collar and lower income voters.
The polls were way off in this race, which may indicate that the models the pollsters used contained some really faulty assumptions. For instance, they may have given independents and younger voters too much weight after the Iowa caucuses.
No doubt a lot of people will be doing a lot of explaining tomorrow as to why their surveys were so far off.