Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire, marking a loss for the party establishments but a triumph for polling . There are few surveys to set expectations in South Carolina or Nevada. And Democrats are warming up to the “liberal” label. This is HuffPollster for Wednesday, February 10, 2016.
ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT VOTERS PUSH DONALD TRUMP AND BERNIE SANDERS TO WIN NEW HAMPSHIRE - Gary Langer: "A powerful pushback against the established political order lifted Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders alike in New Hampshire….Trump was boosted to victory by broad support among voters seeking a political outsider, anger at the federal government, strong worry about the economy and terrorism and substantial backing for some of his controversial proposals. He did best with less-educated voters, those looking for blunt talk and those who see better days ahead – classic elements of a populist movement. Sanders, for his part, crushed Clinton on the personal attributes of honesty and empathy, whaled among independents and liberals and won young voters – including young women – by extraordinary margins. He prevailed by a vast 70-29 percent among voters focused on income inequality and ran very close with Clinton in two of her strongholds – mainline Democrats and nonwhites, as rare as the latter are in New Hampshire." [ABC]
More from ABC exit polls: "Kasich reached second place as sort of the anti-Trump candidate, earning his best support among some of Trump’s weakest groups…. Forty-five percent of New Hampshire GOP voters were looking for experience rather than a political outsider – and Kasich got 28 percent in this group, followed by Bush and Rubio, with 20 and 18 percent…. Kasich virtually tied Trump among moderates and liberals….Sanders won by 45 points among self-identified independents (72-27), and they accounted for 39 percent of NH voters…. 41 percent said want a president who is more liberal than Obama, and those voters backed Sanders by a vast 80-19 percent….Clinton, for her part, did best among those focused on experience (87-13 percent), electability (81-18 percent) and among those who want to see Obama’s policies continued (64-36 percent vs. Sanders)." [ABC]
Trump voters not guided by ideology - HuffPollster: "Donald Trump's win in the New Hampshire GOP primary Tuesday night highlights a peculiarity of his support: His base is all over the map. Although Iowa's winner, Ted Cruz, found success by appealing disproportionately to the state's most conservative voters, Trump's support shows no regard for ideological lines. Exit polls in New Hampshire showed Trump winning among voters who described themselves as very conservative, somewhat conservative or moderate by about equal margins." [HuffPost]
NEW HAMPSHIRE’S OTHER BIG WINNER: POLLS - HuffPollster: “Pollsters had warned all week that New Hampshire could surprise everyone, but those cautions seem to have been largely unnecessary. ….Unlike in the caucuses, where voters have the opportunity to be swayed by their fellow community members, primaries are traditional elections with secret ballots. The propensity for voters to change their minds at the last minute -- although still high -- is lower than in a caucus situation….It would have been a huge upset for Sanders or Trump to lose. Every state and every primary or caucus is a new event, though, so just as we warned not to assume polls would be inaccurate based on Iowa, don’t assume polls will be accurate from now on based on New Hampshire.” [HuffPost]
IT’S STILL EARLY IN THE CAMPAIGN - HuffPollster: “[O]nce the dust settles in New Hampshire, we probably won’t know much more about either party's nomination contest than we did before. The New Hampshire primary is an imperfect predictor at the best of times, and this year that goes double….A win would obviously be a boost to [Trump’s and Sanders’] campaign, but it wouldn’t mean that they've locked down their party's nomination. It wouldn’t even necessarily give them an advantage going forward. For this year, at least, a victory in New Hampshire will just be a victory in New Hampshire -- no less, but almost certainly no more.” [HuffPost]
Trump and Sanders still face challenges ahead - Jonathan Bernstein: “The big advantage for Sanders over the next few weeks is that we're about to have a media freak-out about Hillary Clinton and her chances. It will be largely unjustified. ….Trump, too, had advantages in New Hampshire, since evangelical and very conservative voters make up a much smaller percentage of the Republican electorate than in most states. Polling suggests that in a more typical Republican state he'll perform more the way he did in Iowa and fail to reach 30 percent.... In four of the last five contest Republican contests, four candidates received at least 10 percent of the South Carolina vote, but eventually the logic of place-order finishes continued to knock out losers until a winner emerged.” [Bloomberg]
MUCH LESS POLLING IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND NEVADA - The next caucuses are in Nevada on Feb. 20 for Democrats and Feb. 23 for Republicans, but there’s still barely enough polling for HuffPost Pollster to create charts of those contests. There's also relatively little in South Carolina, which holds its GOP primary in just 10 days, but hasn't seen a survey since voting started in Iowa. While the focus will shift the next few days,the volume -- and in some cases, the quality -- of polling is unlikely to match that seen in the earliest states. [HuffPost Pollster charts for South Carolina GOP, South Carolina Dems, Nevada GOP, Nevada Dems]
DEMOCRATIC VOTERS MORE WILLING TO ADOPT ‘LIBERAL’ LABEL - Rob Suls and Jocelyn Kiley: "As Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battle over who better represents progressive or liberal values, it’s clear that Democratic voters overall have become increasingly comfortable with the 'liberal' label. From 2000 to 2015, the share of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters describing their political views as liberal increased by 15 percentage points, from 27% to 42%..... In 2008, when Barack Obama defeated Clinton for the party’s nomination, 41% of Democratic voters called themselves moderates, while just 33% said they were liberals and 23% said they were conservatives. And in 2000, moderate Democratic voters outnumbered liberals by 45% to 27%." [Pew]
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WEDNESDAY'S 'OUTLIERS' - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-A Pew Research report finds that politically-active Democratic millennials mostly learned about the election from social media. [Pew]
-Nate Cohn explains why Donald Trump won twice in one night by dividing his rivals. [NYT]
-Nate Silver says it's time that Republicans started treating Donald Trump as the frontrunner. [538]
-Edward-Isaac Dovere and Gabriel Debenedetti predict the Democratic primary will come down to race. [Politico]
-Exit polls find that two-thirds of New Hampshire Republican voters want to temporarily ban Muslims who aren't U.S. citizens from entering the country. [Fusion]
-A study shows that millennials don't like taking long surveys. [Quirk's]