Exit Polls Say Obama Will Win the Election

According to the Latest Major Exit Polls Obama Will Be the Next President of the United States

LDP
Private companies such as the media are generally the main conductors of exit polls. For those that do not understand opinion polls, entrance polls, or exit polls the media coverage of the results may be confusing.

An opinion poll gives the results of what a sample of how voters plan to vote.

An entrance poll is taken before the voter casts their ballot.

An exit poll asks the voters which candidate they actually voted for.

Election Day news coverage of the Presidential Election will run from early morning and into dawn if need be. Exit poll coverage by the media is the only way to predict the outcome of the election because actual voting is anonymous.

CNN's Election Center 2008 hosts an Election Tracker that allows you to view their company's most up to the minute predictions. As of early morning Election Day, CNN had Obama winning at 51%, McCain with 44% and leaving 5% of voters ready to cast their ballot claiming to be 'unsure'. CNN also allows you to predict the election yourself by giving you the CNN ELECTORAL MAP CALCULATOR. In this function you predict the outcome by selecting states you think either candidate will win. This could be something fun to do with family, friend or co-workers.

The ABC News/Washington Post polling ended late the eve of Election Day. Of the likely 2,304 voters polled over the weekend and Monday, 53% claimed to have voted for Obama and 44% for McCain. So, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll Obama is so far winning the election.

The Gallup Poll released their final exit poll results claiming that Obama has definitely won the White House with 53% of the voters polled claiming they had voted for Obama and only 42% for McCain. In recent Gallup Poll results, the 53% for Obama marks his highest rating and the 42% for McCain matches his lowest ranking. If the undecided voters in this poll are approximated, it would give Obama 55% to McCain's 44%.

To find out whom your state is leaning towards throughout the day click on the following link State by State Results to take you directly to CNN's live exit polls page.

Most news organizations will not release the full results of their exit poll results until after the polls have closed; this is generally around 7pm.

Published by LDP

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2 Comments

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  • A. Guck11/4/2008

    I am just reporting on what the predictions are thus far. We won't know who actually won until all the ballots are counted. And, if enough controversy is stirred about the validity of the votes, etc...we may be in for another let down.
    Great post. Thanks.

  • Your name11/4/2008

    It turns out that exit polls are not very good polls. They may be accurate, of course, but that could purely be accidental.

    The better polls are the last opinion polls conducted before the election.

    Reason is the methodology. Exit polls are huge polls, tens of thousands of people, but there is usually not enough information to model the poll by the population in order to produce a valid result.

    Moreover, if you remember Teddy White's first "Making of the President" book. He reported that Republicans vote early and Democrats late. This may not be the case anymore, and it may be different in different areas, but unless the exit pollster is there for the full cycle of voting, he or she may have missed a vital change in the electorate. Sadly, we do not know that the exit polls are there for the full period.

    I have heard that the networks do not really use them to predict an election. They use the exit polls to predict the results if a large number of votes are already in and th

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