| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| WSJ: Following the Election Returns |
| 2006-11-07 |
| An hour-by-hour guide to tonight's results. This year the networks say they are guarding their exit poll results as if they were crown jewels. The results will be delivered to a "quarantine room," access to which will be granted to only two staffers from each network and wire service, who must surrender all cell phones, BlackBerrys and similar devices before entering the room. Such precautions are designed to prevent preliminary results, often wrong in 2000 and 2004, from being posted on Web sites like the Drudge Report. Only at 5 p.m. will the occupants of the quarantine room be allowed to reveal the exit polls to their bosses. The networks claim to have completely revamped their exit-poll methodology, which in 2004 had surveys in which the results, collected mostly by female graduate students, consistently favored Democrats. The changes will mean the networks will be slower to call the winners. That and the difficulty of adjusting for the large number of absentee ballots could mean a longer night than usual. So how to make sense of things this election night? Don't feel obligated to listen to the endless analysis of the pundits (including me) on the networks. Consider turning down the TV to a whisper and either watching the crawl of actual returns on the bottom of the screen or monitoring them on the Internet at sites like RealClearPolitics.com. Given that the longer election night might not suit everyone's bedtime, I've prepared an hour-by-hour guide to tonight's results to provide clues on how each major party is doing even if individual winners in races haven't been called. All times are Eastern. In a bow to tradition, we've listed states that went for George W. Bush two years ago in red and those that went for John Kerry in blue. The letters after state names indicate governor and senate races, with the incumbent party in the appropriate color (independents in black). For example, "California GS" indicates that the Golden State went for John Kerry in 2004 and has a governor's race with a Republican incumbent and a Senate race with a Democratic incumbent. Go to the link for the hour-by-hour poll closing info. |
| Posted by:Phemp Sheck8302 |
| #1 why should I pay attention to Real Clear Politics? He's been blowing in the wind just like everyone else. His polls have been meaningless. |
| Posted by: Clkethel OHlkdj 2006-11-07 13:03 |