The New Hampshire Primary

We took our field trip to the New Hampshire primary today. The record warmth was appreciated as we had to stay 100 feet from the polling buildings to do our exit polls. We left before 7AM and arrived at Ward 1 in Nashua around 9:30. Our bus was immediately surrounded by TV cameras and reporters, who were soon disappointed that no candidate was aboard. But fortunately for us, their target - the Straight Talk Express - showed up 10 minutes later. McCain was nearly crushed by the media frenzy but he made his statements and managed to shake a couple hands - including Ms. Barton's! (see video below) The kids all got good pictures, and some even got interviewed by the TV reporters hanging around. So cool!

From there we went to Ward 3 in Nashua - a lot quieter - and then on to Milford. Our polling in both places was fascinating, as we all met a wide variety of voters. Below is the press release I just sent around to the local papers, which summarizes the results of the poll.

By the way, the New York Times ran the article on political tourism today in which I got mentioned. See http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/us/politics/08tourism.html

Press Release: Harwich Students Conduct Exit Poll in New Hampshire

Twenty-four students and two teachers from Harwich High School took a field trip to New Hampshire to see the state’s “first-in-the-nation” primary first-hand. While there, they interviewed 137 voters in Nashua and Milford for an exit poll summarized below. They also got to see Sen. John McCain as the “Straight-Talk Express” visited Ward 1 in Nashua.

In the exit poll, McCain beat Huckabee, Romney, and Paul 40% to 26%, 16%, and 10% respectively. For the Democrats, Clinton led with 39% over Obama and Edwards tied with 29%. The small survey conducted in a narrow area of the state isn’t likely to be an accurate predictor. However, many other interesting trends emerged.

Independents voted for Democrats 77% of the time, indicating a possible advantage for November. The top four issues cited by voters were foreign policy (the war in Iraq), character and experience, health care (esp. for Democrats) and the economy. Among these, foreign policy helped McCain and Obama, Experience helped McCain and Clinton, and the economy helped Edwards.

The average voter watched 3.6 debates, and those who were influenced by them in their decision favored Huckabee and Obama most. Voters reported seeing hundreds of ads and receiving dozens of phone calls – some had been called ten times in the last day. While most said the were not influenced by ads, 15% of Democrats cited Clinton’s ads as convincing, and 22% of Republicans voted against Romney because of his negative ads.

Pres. Bush had very low ratings in the survey with only 15% approving, 77% disapproving and 9% unsure. Even among Republicans, 54% disapproved. Only 30% of Republican voters described themselves as evangelical Christians – half the rate reported in Iowa, and while Huckabee led with 42% of their votes, the lower percentage might account for his loss.

Both men and women favored Democrats though more so for women (68%-32% compared to 55%-45%). Both younger and older voters favored Democrats while middle aged voters were evenly split. Younger voters voted most for Obama and Huckabee, while middle aged and older voters supported Clinton and McCain.

The students on the trip were all senior government students. They reported a deeper interest in the presidential race after this experience.

Some video of McCain's visit: