May 2008 Archives

Edison Media Research is pleased to announce that Edison Executive Vice President Joe Lenski has been elected to be the Vice President and President-elect of the New York chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). Lenski will begin serving as Vice President this summer and succeed president Anthony Salvanto (CBS News) in 2009 as the head of the New York chapter of the nation's leading organization for public opinion and survey research professionals. Lenski has been an active contributor to AAPOR both nationally and with the local New York organization, the largest of AAPOR's seven national chapters. Lenski leads Edison's exit polling efforts, including the company's work with the National Election Pool as the sole provider of exit polling data for the six major news networks and other subscribers. He is a globally recognized thought leader in the fields of exit polling and survey research, and one of the founders of Edison Media Research in 1994.

The best predictions of the Democratic Presidential Primaries may have been made way back on February 6^th, 2008 --the day after the Super Tuesday primaries.  On that date, a set of predictions was leaked to Bloomberg News showing the popular vote and delegate breakdown for all of the remaining contests from February 9^th through June 3^rd.  It proved prescient again last week when the unofficial results from Pennsylvania showed Clinton winning 84 delegates and Obama winning 74 delegates - the prediction from February 6^th had Clinton winning 83 to 75.

So who is responsible for this nearly dead-on prediction?  The Obama campaign itself, as you can see at this site or download the spreadsheet yourself.

And Pennsylvania has not been the only spot-on prediction that was made in this spreadsheet.  It has picked the winner correctly in every contest since February 5^th except for one - Obama claimed the Maine Caucuses even though this Magic 8-ball spreadsheet had Clinton squeaking out a win.

Almost as importantly, it has been right on the button in the delegate distribution in many states - the spreadsheet predicted the exact delegate breakdowns in Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming and Mississippi; was only off by one delegate in Ohio and Nebraska; by two in Wisconsin; and by three in Louisiana, Washington, Hawaii and the District of Columbia.

Now some might say that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the Obama campaign investing money in places where it expects to do better to begin with.  However, the Obama campaign is not limited in its fundraising and seems to be spending as much as possible in every state. What this says to me is that the campaign had realistic expectations in every state after February 5^th and it created a plan and a goal that the campaign subsequently achieved in each of these states.

So what does this spreadsheet prognosticate for the next round of primaries on May 6th? Seems like the Obama campaign is predicting a good day for the Obama campaign:

Indiana - Obama 39, Clinton 33;

North Carolina - Obama 61, Clinton 54. 

With its track record so far I wouldn't bet against the spreadsheet.