How to Read the Early Exit Polls

Josh has just posted the second wave of the exit polls, and a handful of first wave results besides. Here are three quick points to take away:

1) SurveyUSA bet wrong: The optimistic projections for Clinton were based on SurveyUSA, which either boldly bucked the conventional wisdom or was off in a world of its own. Now, we know the answer. These polls look much more like the consensus averages.

2) Blacks voted for Obama in a big way: We don't even have the demographic breakdowns yet, but we can see that Obama's margins in Georgia and Alabama are much larger, and his loss in Tennessee much smaller, than almost any polls had predicted.

3) It's going to be a good delegate night for Obama: Earlier today, Howard Wolfson attempted to lower the bar for Hillary, suggesting that instead of winning a majority of the available delegates tonight, she should be credited with a win if she still holds the overall lead (that is, loses by fewer than 70-100 delegates). Now, we know why. If these numbers hold up, Obama should win slightly more delegates than Hillary will, when it all shakes out. It'll be close - that in itself is the Obama camp's definition of victory - but it'll probably tilt toward Obama - and that was yesterday's definition of defeat from Camp Clinton.

More on reading the tea leaves from my earlier post. And if you enjoyed this, please recommend it, so others can read it, too.