New Hampshire Exit Polls Have Been Pretty Good! (But You Should Still Be Wary.)
How accurate have exit polls historically been in New Hampshire? As it turns out, they’ve been pretty good! While exit polls generally have a margin of error of around 4 percentage points, the differences between these polls and the actual results have been under 1 percentage point in the last three Democratic primaries. And they’ve consistently gotten the order in which the candidates finished exactly right.
Does this mean we can expect them to be as spot-on this year? No. You should be cautious for two reasons. First, just because exit polls have historically been more accurate than expected doesn’t mean that they’ll be so this time. And second, the fact that there are so many candidates might make it harder to get the order right, since they could be predicted to get similar vote shares.
New Hampshire exit polls have been pretty accurate
Difference between topline exit poll numbers and final results for candidates in New Hampshire Democratic primaries, 2004 to 2016
| 2016 | Exit Poll | Results | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanders | 60% | 61.0% | +1.0 |
| Clinton | 38 | 38.2 | +0.2 |
| 2008 | Exit Poll | Results | Difference |
| Clinton | 39% | 39.1% | +0.1 |
| Obama | 37 | 36.5 | -0.5 |
| Edwards | 17 | 16.9 | -0.1 |
| 2004 | Exit Poll | Results | Difference |
| Kerry | 38% | 38.4% | +0.4 |
| Dean | 26 | 26.3 | +0.3 |
| Clark | 12 | 12.4 | +0.4 |
| Edwards | 12 | 12.1 | +0.1 |
| 2000 | Exit Poll | Results | Difference |
| Gore | 52% | 49.7% | -2.3 |
| Bradley | 47 | 45.6 | -1.4 |