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NEW YORK - Barack Obama's tendency through the Democratic primaries to perform better in exit polls than he actually does at the ballot box has some media organizations nervous heading into Election Night. Television networks want to avoid having their performance become an issue for the third straight presidential election. Their political experts hope that experience gained during the primaries will help things run smoothly Nov. 4. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press pool resources to conduct exit polls in select precincts, hoping to glean information about why people vote the way they do and...

Polling place surveys frequently overstated Obama vote during primaries NEW YORK - Barack Obama’s tendency through the Democratic primaries to perform better in exit polls than he actually does at the ballot box has some media organizations nervous heading into Election Night. Television networks want to avoid having their performance become an issue for the third straight presidential election. Their political experts hope that experience gained during the primaries will help things run smoothly Nov. 4.

Polls have closed in Pennsylvania where a high turnout of voters is expected to weigh in on a gruelling primary battle between Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. At this point, ABC News does not have enough information to project a winner in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

Though rarely mentioned on the campaign trail, race and gender weighed heavily on the minds of some voters in the Democratic presidential primary.The sharp divide among blacks and whites and women and men showed that it wasn't just the economy and the Iraq war that mattered to voters on Tuesday. Hillary Rodham Clinton won Ohio's primary, as well as the voting in Texas and Rhode Island.When asked how much race influenced their vote, 20 percent of Ohio voters said it was an important issue and three in five voted for Clinton, according to exit polls for The Associated Press and...

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- About the only thing the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries made clear is that religious voters are as conflicted as the general electorate over who the next president should be. By the afternoon of Feb. 6, with results in from almost all of the states that held Republican and Democratic contests on the largest primary day in American history, neither party had a candidate with a prohibitive lead in delegates. Moreover, according to exit-poll data, no GOP candidate had a clear advantage among self-described evangelical voters, and no Democrat had a clear advantage among those who attend...

California 21 (all of Tulare County and the eastern half of Fresno County) Mitt Romney, 18,477 (36.1) John McCain, 18,261 (35.7) California 49 (much of Northern San Diego County and southwestern Riverside County) Mitt Romney, 24,264 (38.8) John McCain, 23,608 (37.7) California 52 (parts of Imperial and San Diego counties) Mitt Romney, 30,034 (40.3) John McCain, 27,844 (37.4) District 25: Romney down 1.9% (91% reporting) District 26: Romney down 7.4% (83.8% reporting) District 41: Romney down 5.7% (76.5% reporting) District 42: Romney down 0.2% (97.6% reporting) District 43: Romney down 11.2% (68.4% reporting) If things stay this way, the tally...

Mitt Romney 5,032 44% Mike Huckabee 2,492 22% Ron Paul 1,896 17% John McCain 1,767 16% Uncommitted 187 2

Fox News projects Hillary Clinton and John McCain the winners in California primaries.

Barack Obama has won in Alaska, according to Fox News.

Fox News calls Missouri for Barack Obama, contradicting AP's projection, which earlier gave the bellwether state to Clinton.

Looks like McCain is up about 2-3%. He leads among men, 41-35. Romney leads among women, 38-34. Here's how stupid Californians are: Giuliani is getting about 5%. This is NOT a winner-take-all state. Rather, it's like 53 separate elections, one in each congressional district. What's outrageous is that some districts have 20 times more Republicans than others. My fear is that McCain will win these. Either way, the battle will last for months to come.

Fox News projects John McCain the winner in Missouri.

CNN projects Mitt Romney the winner in Colorado.

Hillary Clinton has won Arizona, projects Fox News.

CNN projects Mitt Romney the winner in Minnesota.

Fox News projects Barack Obama the winner of the Idaho Democrat caucuses.

Barack Obama has won Colorada, predicts Fox News.

An invitation to post comments, polls, election calls, official results and other relevant commentary.

Mitt Romney wins in Montana, predicts Fox News

Hillary Clinton has won the bellwether state of Missouri, according to the AP.

AP and Fox News project Mike Huckabee has won Georgia; CNN gives Alabama to Huckabee

Fox News projects John McCain the winner in Arizona and Mike Huckabee the winner in Tennessee.

Mitt Romney has won the GOP caucuses in North Dakota, according to Fox News.

Barack Obama wins in Minnesota, according to Fox News.

Barack Obama has won the Connecticut Democrat primary, says Fox News.

Fox News predicts Barack Obama wins the North Dakota Democratic caucuses.

Fox News says Mitt Romney and Barack Obama win in Utah.

Fox News projects McCain the winner in Oklahoma.

CNN projects that Clinton will win Massachusetts Democratic primary.

Fox News says Barack Obama has won the Kansas Democratic caucuses.

Fox News projects Barack Obama the winner of the Alabama Democrat primary.

Fox News calls New York for John McCain

CNN Projects McCain and Obama Win Delaware

CNN projects Clinton as the winner of the Democratic primary in New York.

Fox News: Clinton Wins in OK and TN

NBC News will declare John McCain the projected winner in Connecticut, Illinois, and New Jersey

Surprising and very good news for Romney in Delaware and Missouri. Too close to call in California --but very early as well with a huge pile of absentees that roll in at * PM Pacific. And Arizona is stunning: McCain only 44% and Romney at 39%.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008 HORSERACEThe Great Big Early Exit Poll ReportI just got a big pile of exit poll data. The early wave in California: McCain 40 percent, Romney 36 percent, Huckabee 10 percent. Fascinating and fun as it is, I remind my readers that this doesn’t tell us that much, as we don’t know what the district-by-district breakdown is. Also, there are three million absentee votes that I’m pretty sure are not included in this. So while these numbers are nice to hear for McCain fans, I take them with even more caution, skepticism and grains of salt...

DECISIONS, DECISIONS - About one in 10 voters in each party said they decided whom to vote for on Tuesday. Slightly more said they decided in the last three days. About half of Democratic primary voters and a third of Republicans said they made up their minds more than a month ago. ECONOMICS - Voters in both parties most frequently picked the economy as the most important issue facing the country. Given three choices, half of Democratic primary voters picked the economy, 3 in 10 said the war in Iraq and two in 10 said health care. Republican primary voters...

Mike Huckabee won the first of 21 GOP contests on Super Tuesday, pulling out a victory in the West Virginia Republican convention even though Mitt Romney won the first round. The convention had to go into a second round of voting Tuesday after no candidate took a clear majority. Texas Rep. Ron Paul was knocked out in the first round, but Huckabee, Romney and John McCain moved forward.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Mike Huckabee won the first contest declared on Super Tuesday, picking up all 18 national delegates awarded at West Virginia's state GOP convention. Huckabee bested Mitt Romney, who entered the Mountain State event with the largest bloc of pledged convention-goers. Both men and Ron Paul made in-person appeals to the more than 1,100 convention delegates attending Tuesday's convention.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama surged to a big lead over Hillary Clinton in California hours before "Super Tuesday" voting began in 24 states, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday. In the Republican race, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held a 7-point advantage on Arizona Sen. John McCain in California, while McCain added to commanding double-digit leads in New York and New Jersey. On a sprawling day of coast-to-coast voting, the biggest ever in a U.S. primary race, the U.S. presidential contenders in both parties were fighting to win a huge cache of delegates to...

From FoxNews: Conservatives - Mike Huckabee 32%, John McCain 26%, Mitt Romney 19%, Fred Thompson 17% Independents - John McCain 37%, Mike Huckabee 23%, Ron Paul 15%, Mitt Romney 14% Evangelicals - Mike Huckabee 41%, John McCain 27%, Fred Thompson 14%, Mitt Romney 11% Veterans - John McCain 36%, Mike Huckabee 25%, Mitt Romney 20%, Fred Thompson 13% As far as the three most important issues to voters: McCain and Huckabee are tied on the economy, Huckabee is leading on immigration and McCain is winning on Iraq.

Foxs just released some exit poll numbers.... McCain up with military and independents... Huckabee up with evangelicals and conservatives... Fred not doing well with any groups... Sad.... Really Sad....

I'm surprised no one else has put this up yet. I'm hearing the first round of exit polls have Romney 35, McCain 29, Huckabee 15, Ron Paul 10, Giuliani 4. This doesn't count absentee ballots. If this holds, the networks will be able to announce shortly after 9 p.m. eastern time... Of course, all the standard disclaimers apply, and the later voters may differ from the early rounds, and the polls are still open, so if you're a Michigander, go out and vote for your favorite.

Early exit polling from Michigan appears to bode well for Mitt Romney and ill for John McCain. McCain won the Republican primary in 2000, thanks largely to support from independents and Democrats who crossed over. But while independents made up 35 percent of primary voters in 2000, they only comprised about 25 percent of voters today, according to the exit poll, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for The Associated Press and television networks. While Republicans made up less than half of primary voters in 2000, two-thirds of GOP primary voters surveyed today said they were registered Republicans,...

Yes, the television networks will be conducting exit polls today. But if you are looking for the leaked exit poll estimates that typically appear online on Election Day, you are probably out of luck at least until later tonight. More on that below. But as long as you are here, let me tell you a little bit about how exit polls are conducted, how they will be different this year, and why it is probably best to try to ignore the exit poll estimates that will inevitably leak later tonight. I have always been a fan of exit polls. Despite...

In the first few days after the 2004 presidential election, Steve Freeman was more perplexed than anything. How could it be, the University of Pennsylvania professor wondered, that exit polls showing John Kerry would win most of the critical battleground states were wrong and that George W. Bush wound up winning the popular vote by almost 3.5 million? When he realized no one in the mainstream media was investigating the glaring discrepancy, Freeman, who has a Ph.D. in organizational studies from MIT, decided to conduct his own investigation."I just felt that the discrepancy ought to be explained - that people...

NEW YORK - Warren Mitofsky, a survey researcher who pioneered the use of exit polls to cover elections and helped develop the sampling method used in most modern telephone polling, has died. Mitofsky, who was 71, died Friday in New York City of an aortic aneurysm. Joe Lenski, Mitofsky's partner in exit polling for the last two national elections, confirmed his death Saturday. Mitofsky started conducting exit polls in 1967 for CBS News and developed the projection system and analysis system used by CBS and later by a consortium of news organizations that conducted national exit polls. "He was the...

Political Wire obtained a copy of the exit poll last night done by CBS News and the New York Times that provides some interesting insight into the views of Connecticut Democrats who voted in the primary yesterday. Key findings: As expected, the war in Iraq played a significant role in the race with "a significant majority" of primary voters saying they disapproved of the U.S. decision to go to war with Iraq, and most of them cast their ballots for Ned Lamont. Of those surveyed, 78% disapproved of the decision to go to war. Among the war’s opponents, 60% cast...