Campaign's Own Exit Polls

I know that the Exit Polls showing Kerry winning big, were part of the polling done for the media, which the networks apparently paid $10 Million for. Forget those for now.

I had heard repeatedly that the campaigns themselves have their OWN polling systems in place. In other words, they don't pay as much attention to the polling being done by Zogby or other services(although I'm sure they track them), as they do to their OWN #'s and their OWN polls.

So if Kerry's polling was showing that he was winning big. And Shrub's polling was showing that he was losing big, enough so that karen hughes was telling Shrub in the afternoon that he had lost the election, then isn't it likely that they each had their own Reliable evidence pointing in that direction. And aren't their polls far more likely to be accurate anyways. Don't you think there was a general vibe going around on Tuesday indicating that Shrub was about to lose, and it was not 100% based on just the early exit polls.

About 7:30, the rumor began circulating that the campaign headquarters in MA had us winning in a landslide. I remember calling all of my friends (including a DU friend) with the news, despite the fact that we were asked not to.

It made the eventual result even harder to take.

You know it's not true.

There's no other word.

Don't worry. Something stinks here. We have to figure out what it is.

it.

Anyone know who does the candidate polling vs the media polling? And the differences between the accuracy of both compared to each other from campaigns past vs this one? Or what amt of $$$ are spent on media polls vs the candidates own polls?
I know it won't prove anything but it would be interesting to hear

at commondreams.org he says that Karen Hughes actually told Bush about 12:15 eastern time that he was losing in a landslide. Reports said he reacted "stoicly."

They had to know something, otherwise, why say it?

the exit polls were showing earlier in the day until Rove decided it was time to fix it.

On CNN, Kennedy was commenting that if the voters of SD were smart, Daschle would win his race as to have a senior senator working with "President-elect Kerry". He was interrupted, "Well, we don't know the outcome yet ..." and Kennedy just grinned.

Later, Kerry's daughter (the blond one) was also grinning from ear-to-ear. She misinterpreted a question as to whether Kerry had both victory & concession speeches planned and responded to *which* he would be delivering, and she just laughed and said, "We have to wait and see" while mugging it up and winking repeatedly to the camera.

This was early evening, 6-7 Eastern time.

saying she was superstitious and wasnt going to speculate on the outcome.

Have you noticed? He said blatantly, the voters are most concerned with the war in Iraq and terrorism, and that's why they voted for bush.

So the question is: Why are the polls reliable on the issue of why they voted, and not reliable on the issue of for whom they voted?

IMHO, he's setting everyone up. By claiming Iraq is the number one concern, and with Iraq in increasing turmoil thanks to the incompetence of the handling of this war, it's only a matter of time before they shove the draft down our throat. There will be no other way to "win" the war, and Rove will claim it's because that's what the people wanted when they voted for bush. Supporting a draft will drain our social services even further, gutting more and more programs to finance this ill-begotten war on terrorism.

Absolutely diabolical.

Well, I hope people that really did vote for Bush (and we know many actually did) will be happy.

No wonder bush doesn't care if he guts Social Security, he doesn't think most of us will live long enough to collect on it anyway.

do exit polling.

I wouldn't if I was them. Why spend valuable money on something that can't win you votes. Spend every dollar on stuff that can win you votes like phone banks and tv ads.

I know both campaigns got the first run of morning exit polls and knew them by early afternoon. These were the ones that showed Kerry winning big.

That's the info Karen Hughes gave to Bush. I'm sure Kerry's team got them and were sure they would hold up too.

PS - If I was a presidential campaign manager, I wouldn't pay for any polling at all any more. With so many public polls available in every state, why pay for more. I don't see why mine would be inherintly better than anyone else's. I'd just hire a professional to analyze the public ones for me.

you know who won this thing? WE DID.

We worked our butts off and gave time, money and sweat to this thing. AND THE KIDS DID SHOW UP--in record numbers.

WE earned it. It's OURS to lose now, or to keep.

I remember that they all seemed very upbeat and the Republicans looked like loosers. The only Dem who seemed cautious was Dean. I wonder if given what he knows about e-voting that Dean wasn't falling for the euphoria.