The Command Post
2004 US Presidential Election
« New Poll on the Block | Main | The Politics/Comedy Connection »
January 25, 2004
| Latest Paugus Diner Poll© Results

[Weekend Pundit originally posted this on OpEd, but we think it’s jus the type of local perspective that we like on the 2004 page, so I’ve moved it over.]

——————————

LACONIA, NH- It’s puzzling – the results of the second Paugus Diner Poll© are in and I’m seeing some real discrepancies between the “official” polls and this one. While the official polls show the undecided voters in the Democratic side of the primary at anywhere between 8 and 13 percent, I’m seeing a much higher number in that category.

Question: If you are planning to vote Democrat in the primary, have you decided which candidate you will vote for on Tuesday?

I asked this question until I had found 100 people that were going to vote Democrat in the New Hampshire Primary. It took 2 days to come up with the not so arbitrarily chosen number (It’s easier to calculate percentages if you have 100 respondents), but I reached it this morning halfway through my breakfast at the diner.

Of the 100 people planning to vote for a Democrat in the primary, fully 24% said they had not yet made up their mind about which candidate they would be voting for. For the purposes of this unscientific and totally arbitrary poll, I did not count those who said that they were leaning towards one candidate or another as “undecided”, only those who said they hadn’t yet made up there mind. But if I add the ‘leaning towards’ respondents, then the undecideds jump up to 34%.

Of course you must remember that this is not a statewide poll, but one taken in a small portion of New Hampshire, specifically the towns of Gilford, Laconia, and Belmont (a majority of those participating were in Gilford at the diner). But still I find the results interesting.

The undecideds wield considerable power, being able to make or break a candidate’s campaign with a simple vote. They can confound the pollsters and turn a frontrunner into an almostwas in a single day. It’s happened in the past, so it can happen again. And we must remember one thing – the only poll that counts is the one that takes place on Tuesday. All of the others decide nothing, though you might have a tough time convincing some of the media of that.

(Crossposted to Weekend Pundit)



Posted by Alan at January 25, 2004 11:56 AM | TrackBack
Comments
Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (Click here should you choose to sign out.)

As you post your comment, please mind our simple comment policy: we welcome all perspectives, but require that comments be both civil and respectful. We also ask that you avoid the extensive use of profanity, racist terms (neither of which we consider civil or respectful), and other boorish language.

We reserve the right to delete any comment, and to prohibit you from commenting on this site, if we feel you have broached this policy. As a courtesy, we will first send you an email noting a violation so you understand the boundaries. This will occur only once, however, and should we ban you from our comment forums we expect that ban to be permanent.

We also will frown upon those who suggest that we ban other individuals for voicing unpopular opinions, should those opinions be voiced in a civil and respectful manner. The point of our comment threads is to provide a forum for spirited though civil and respectful discourse … it is not to provide a forum in which everyone will agree with your point of view.

If you can live by these rules, welcome aboard. If not, then we’re sorry it didn’t work out, and thanks for visiting The Command Post.


Remember me?

(You may use HTML tags for style)