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Home » Current Events » Massachusetts Senate Race Exit Polls

Massachusetts Senate Race Exit Polls

By Jim Peterson on January 19, 2010
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Image from the Herald

Digital News Report – Analysts say that the Democrats will lose their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate after Scott Brown wins the Massachusetts Senate seat that was held by Ted Kennedy.

Earlier today George Stephanopoulos told the ABC audience that his sources said it looked like Brown would win. Supporters of the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, are still holding out hope for a miracle.

Analysts expect the turnout to be larger than the December primary. Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin told CNN that he predicts 2.2 million of 4.5 million registered voters would vote. He didn’t think the weather would stop voters.

Local reports indicate that Brown is winning I the exit polls.

The Boston Globe may have jumped the gun. The Boston Herald reported the Globe posted an online map of Massachusetts voting results declaring Attorney General Martha Coakley the winner.

The problem is: The polls are open until 8 pm.

By: Mark Williams

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2 thoughts on “Massachusetts Senate Race Exit Polls”

  1. Dan H says:
    January 19, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    There are no reliable exit polls. As reported in the WSJ ‘Mike Allen of Politico.com reports, the consortium of news outlets that normally organizes such surveys didn’t bother when the race was expected to be a blowout and now “wasn’t confident a reliable system could be built so fast.”‘

    He is 100% correct. I worked at Chilton Research Services (now part of TNS) in 1994 and they had the exit polling contract with ABC (this was before the creation of the VRS to consolidate all the networks efforts instead of having 4 r 5 exit pollsters at voting sites). It is an incredibly complex methodology and extremely challenging to execute because of so much planning needed and so much human intervention in the process. First they must have details on all the polling places they plan to interview at, then they have to develop a a complex sampling plan unique for each site based on past voting patterns, there are in-person interviewers following strict sampling guidelines that tell them how long to take respondents from different exit points, the interviewers have to adhere to strict guidelines of where they can stand and still polling place staff think that interviewers are breaking rules about canvassing and campaigning, and there has to a process to insure interviewers are randomly selecting voters based on an Nth selection formula so there is no response bias (like the male interviewer who stops only attractive young women to interview). It is very difficult, and wildly misleading when not done correctly.

    So if anyone like CNN or some newspapers are saying they have reliable exit poll data, they’re probably lying.

  2. Man Overboard says:
    January 19, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    “Curt Schilling is a Yankee Fan” and “There are no terrorists in Afghanistan”….riiiiiiight. This Coakley gal is almost as good as, you know, Caroline Kennedy…you know?

    Go figure that eventually a Democrat would be held accountable for distortion of truth and lack of substance.

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