The Globe and Mail had a story today that noted while the polls were very close on the Republican outcome of the New Hampshire primary, they apparently blew it on the Democratic race.
One major difference: In the Democratic race, one leading candidate was a black man, while the other was a white woman.
Or is that too simple an explanation?
Canadian pollster Tim Woolstencroft of the Strategic Counsel said the notion that voters would deceive pollsters about Mr. Obama because he's black isn't so far-fetched. "We see this pattern in Quebec, where polls overestimate the support for the separatists," he said.
But don't cast New Hampshire voters as closet racists just yet. There are a host of other plausible explanations for Ms. Clinton's late surge. Among them: Pollsters may have overestimated Mr. Obama's bounce from Iowa; Ms. Clinton could have had a better get-out-the-vote machine; independents might have opted late in the game to vote in the Republican primary because they thought the media had already anointed Mr. Obama president; New Hampshire put candidates' names in alphabetical order this year so Ms. Clinton was first on the ballot; women voters overwhelmingly flocked to Ms. Clinton.*
* One analyst cited in news reports suggested this could have given Clinton an advantage of up to three percentage points. She won by two points. However, the polls had her down by nine to 13 points.
Ultimately, experts may conclude that all these factors, like a perfect storm, played a part in lifting Ms. Clinton, the new comeback kid, to victory in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire-based pollster Dick Bennett of American Research Group, who also predicted an Obama win, said the answer to the poll mystery is much simpler. The pundits misinterpreted the impact of Ms. Clinton's unexpected display of emotion in a New Hampshire café, seeing it as a sign of imminent failure, instead of a galvanizing moment for voters, especially women.
Unlike most of his rivals, his polls showed Ms. Clinton with a very late surge.
"We did not have a polling problem; we just ran out of time," Mr. Bennett said.