NH-Rasmussen: Obama leads by 11%

[TheresNoMoney]

Well, I remember when the last poll before the Dem NH primary showed Obama ahead of Hillary by a big margin and look what happened.

All the undecideds broke to Hillary the last 2 days before the election. That's what happened. 

The poll wasn't as bad as people made it out to be.

[defe07]

Well, I remember when the last poll before the Dem NH primary showed Obama ahead of Hillary by a big margin and look what happened.

Don't NHites actively lie to pollsters?

That might've been my point.

[classical liberal]

I really wish Rasmussen would stop asking about Bush immediately before asking about Obama/McCain. 

WTF???  That is the worst possible methodology.  Do you have a link attesting to this stupidity?

[TheresNoMoney]

Though both Obama and McCain both play well in New Hampshire considering the political makeup of New Hampshire, I would have thought that Obama would either be leading McCain by anywhere between 2-5 points, not 11 points.

You have to remember that Republicans used to have a huge registration advantage in NH that has been steadily eroding over the past 15-20 years.  Now in 2008, the parties have approximately equal registrations (about 31% each) while indepedents make up a huge 38%.

The key is that independents in NH are quite liberal/libertarian leaning. That means socially liberal and very anti-war.  New Hampshire will be a pretty solidly blue state in the very near future.

[Smash255]

I don't see how soe people are surprised by this.  Obaa is likely up by 5-6 points nationally at this point, NH was about 4% more dem than the national average in 2004 and the state sure as hell isn't trending Republican.

[Lunar]

If any states could have been argued to experience an overt Bradley effect in the 2008 primaries, it would be New Hampshire (and then CA, the state where the effect got its name).  I find it amusing that when New Hampshire showed the McCain beating Obama people were arguing that Obama's going to do worse than Kerry (relative to national numbers) because of MA's proximity in 2004.  Now, in this thread it seems that Obama is the perfect candidate to do well in New Hampshire.  Of course, some of it was due to Clinton's name recognition advantage that was far more apparent in primaries and earlier in the election cycle, but it is something to keep in the back of your mind.

I think McCain is still competitive in the state, he is more closely identified with New Hampshire than pretty much any other state outside of Arizona (I've read more than one article identifying him as the "third senator from New Hampshire") and he seems to really play pretty well there. His approval ratings are still pretty high and outside of his war record, he seems like he's a good fit for New Hampshire in most respects.

I expect the state will swing around some more and settle about where it did in 2004 but we'll see.  Rasmussen has really tended to be more Republican than other pollsters so far in general polls, making this one particularly interesting.

[Democratic Hawk]