Why did the polls show this as a much tighter race?

[RoadRage]

- Because voters really didn't make a decision until this week?
- Because Pollsters call landlines, and a big majority of Obama's support is younger, more likely to only have cell phones and probably didn't get polled (this happened to me)
- Because the 3rd, 4th & 5th place caucus goers helped Obama.. and that wouldn't show up in Polls

Other Ideas?

At the most Obama was leading by only a couple of points.. and was behind in a lot of polls.. no one showed him leading by 8% consistently..

[Joe the Revelator]

1. I think all of the above

nt

[FrenchieCat]

2. The young people were out partying

for the holidays....couldn't be reached to be polled.

100% increase in turn out!

[RoadRage]

3. And.. does it mean NH numbers may be closer too? NT

[Caseman]

4. Also, because the Iowa caucus system is a sinkhole...

...You have to have 'groups' to vote. No individual votes. So in small rural areas, where there wasn't enough support for a second-tier candidate, they were picked off by the top-tier vultures.

[EffieBlack]

5. I think we may have just seen the reverse "Bradley Effect"

{For those who don't know} In 1982, when Mayor Tom Bradley ran for Governor of California, the polls showed him winning, yet he lost by a fairly wide margin. Most analysts believe that white voters, not wanting to sound bigoted, told pollsters they intended to vote for Bradley, yet when it came time to vote, they just couldn't bring themselves to pull the lever for black candidate.

Tonight, we may have seen just the opposite. I think it's very possible that many voters told pollsters - truthfully - that they intended to vote for someone other than Obama, yet when it was time to actually vote, they decided to vote for him.

I'll be curious to see what the post-caucus analysis tells us.

[Pirate Smile]

6. Because no one except the last DMR poll used the right formula.

[Occam Bandage]

7. I'd guess it comes down to the 2nd choices, which broke for Obama,

are not covered by the polling, and are hard to predict.

[Quixote1818]

8. They weighed in the younger voters though nt