First look at today's voting

From the initial batch of exit polls, it appears that the primary results won't be much of a surprise.

Published May 6, 2008 10:15PM (EDT)

Unsurprisingly, Matt Drudge was the first to break the embargo on exit polls and release some early results -- his big, screaming red headline reads, "HILLARY'S 'DOUBLE DREAM' DASHED: EXITS SHOW EASY OBAMA WIN IN NC."

That does comport with what we've seen out of the exit polls so far; the first wave of results shows a predictable result -- Hillary Clinton winning Indiana and Barack Obama winning North Carolina, and by a bigger margin than Clinton takes Indiana.

Now, there are many large caveats to keep in mind as you hear about exit polls for the next hour or two. First, this first wave of exit polls is notorious for being less than perfectly reliable. Second, in previous primaries exit polls have shown Obama doing about 7 percentage points better than he does in the actual vote. And finally, both Indiana and North Carolina are states that are considered very hard to model for polling purposes.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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