2000 Exit Polls and election surveys

The Final Exit Polls
- National
- The South
- Louisiana
- Florida
- Exit Polls on MSNBC (start page)
- Exit Polls on CNN (start page)
- 11/8/00 - Analysis: Bush Cuts Deeply Into Democratic Coalition; But Gore's Base Kept Contest Competitive (by Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post analysis of the exit polls). Texas Governor George W. Bush turned the 2000 election into a neck-and-neck contest by cutting deeply into such constituencies as poor and moderate income voters, Hispanics, the young, Catholics and 1996 Ross Perot supporters, according to exit poll data. Vice President Gore won strong support from African Americans, working women and older voters--and his large margins of victory in these groups were crucial to his ability to remain fully competitive with Bush. But Gore only broke even with suburban voters and won white women by just 1 point, slipping in two crucial constituencies carried by President Clinton in 1996. The Democratic nominee also lost ground among moderate voters.
- Which opinion polls predicted the 2000 Election best
The Florida Controversy
- The Official Florida results (before the recounts)
- The disputed ballot design in Palm Beach County, Florida
- Greg D. Adams' Note on the voting irregularities in Palm Beach, Florida (A statistical analysis)
- 11/17/00 - Alas, Vote-Count Machines Are Only Human - On the accuracy of vote-counting machines (New York Times)
- 11/9/00 - County official knew about ballot confusion - Palm Beach County's elections supervisor distributed a memo to workers about voter confusion -- hours after the polls opened. (Slate)
Post-election Polls & Analyses: Links to Articles
- 11/30/00 - Poll: Public Splits on Party Lines Over Vote and Long Delay (NY Times) For all of Gov. George W. Bush's talk about Americans chafing over the contested election, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows that they are not overwhelmingly distressed and remain deeply divided along partisan lines over who should be president.
  - Poll data here.
- 11/28/00 - Americans Becoming Impatient With Election Uncertainty. Public opposes legal efforts by Gore to contest Florida certification of Bush as winner, but still divided on whether Bush really won in Florida (Gallup)
- 11/27/00 - Post-ABC News Poll: Majority Wants Gore to Concede (Washington Post). A clear majority of Americans believe the vote count in Florida was accurate and want Vice President Gore to stand aside and allow Texas Gov. George W. Bush to assume the presidency, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The survey also found that the country's initial reaction to the weekend's events in Florida is deeply divided and highly partisan, with Democrats rallying around Gore as Republicans stood even more strongly behind Bush.
  - Poll data here.
- The question of polarization
  - 11/26/00 - Polarization of National Dialogue Mirrors Extremists (New York Times)
  - 11/26/00 - From the Anti-Gore Right, a Battle Cry of 'Stop, Thief!' (New York Times)
- 11/25/00 - May Either Man Win (Andrew Kohut, NY Times)
- Some editorials before the election results were certified -
  - 11/27/00 - Conservative: The Gore Coup (Weekly Standard)
  - 11/24/00 - Conservative: President Dimples? (Wall Street Journal)
  - 11/21/00 - Liberal: Republicans On the Attack (EJ Dionne, Washington Post)
  - 11/21/00 - Liberal?: Can Gore Ever Win? (Thomas Friedman, NY Times)
- 11/24/00 - By Fair Means or Foul. The Economist [London]
- 11/17/00 - Support Is Mixed For Hand Tallies. A narrow majority of Americans want the hand recount of ballots underway in South Florida to be included in the final statewide totals (Washington Post poll)
- 11/16/00 - Gore Has Eye on Endgame (news analysis by David Broder, Washington Post)
- 11/14/00 - More post-election polls on the election & the situation in Florida (from PollingReport.com)
- 11/14/00 - Americans Patiently Awaiting Election Outcome (NY Times poll)
- 11/14/00 - Americans Take Their Own Candidate's Side in Election Dispute (Gallup)
- 11/13/00 - Ultimately, Americans Would Accept Either Bush or Gore as Legitimate President (Gallup)
- 11/12/00 - Washington Post-ABC News Post-Election Poll - Results - Article
- 11/11/00 - Some post-election polls on the election & the situation in Florida (from PollingReport.com)
- 11/08/00 - Why the Florida Exit Polls Were Wrong (Washington Post)
The Horse Race: Links to Articles on polls
- [this section deleted. It's old news now!]
Demographic Breakdowns and Trends
- Gallup's Demographic Breakdowns (with trends)
How to interpret the polls
- Good General Overviews from the National Council on Public Polls -
  - Answers to Questions We Often Hear from the Public
  - 20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results
  - Also see their cautions about "weighting" the data here. This addresses a big controversy about "wild swings" in the tracking polls. Most polls weight their data by party ID to avoid the daily swings. Gallup doesn't weight their data by party ID, and they get big daily swings. The NCPP is endorsing Gallup's practice. See the Washington Post's stories on this in the links below.
- Information from Gallup about their Tracking Poll (incl. explanations of its volatility)
  - How the Polls are Conducted (from the Gallup site)
  - Why Do the Likely Voter Numbers Sometimes Vary Significantly Within a Period of a Few Days? (from the Gallup site)
  - 10/12/00 - An email by David W. Moore of Gallup
- 11/01/00 - Who's Voting for Nader " Indie Women and Other 'Swingers' " Why We're Weighting to Party ID (Washington Post)
- 10/26/00 - Pollish Sausage: Why All the Polls Disagree (Slate)
- 10/26/00 - Gallup's Credibility Gap: What's with those wild swings in the polls? (Wall Street Journal)
- 10/25/00 - Beyond Gender, Polls Reveal Wide Gaps (i.e., gender differences, regional, race, income differences, etc.) (Washington Post)
- 10/19/00 - To Some Complaints, Focus Groups Emerge as Stars of the Fall Season (NY Times)
- 10/18/00 - The Vanishing Voter: One in Seven Likely Voters Still Undecided on a Presidential Candidate (Harvard, Kennedy School of Government) - trend data. Explore their site for more info about the project.
- 10/18/00 - Instant Polls: Debates Leave Race at a Draw (Washington Post)
- 10/12/00 - Polls, Predictions and the Press: Should We Trust Election Polls (Statistical Assessment Service)
- 10/11/00 - Candidate Poll Picture Is Confusing (Associated Press). There are more polls than ever, more media competition to make the most of them, and less voter commitment to the candidates than in many years.
- 10/11/00 - What's Behind Gallup's Volatile Poll Numbers? (Washington Post)
- 10/6/00 - Case study on the effect of sampling method: Presidential Debate Winner, by Manfred Kuechler, Sociology Department at Hunter College (CUNY) - a comparison of standard polling vs. web-based "junk" polls.
General Sources of Polling Data
- Polling Report - a collection of recent surveys from all sources; updated daily (see the current horse races here.)
- USA TODAY-CNN-Gallup Tracking Polls - Updated daily till election day
- CNN/AllPolitics (w/ Time, USAToday, & Gallup) - Polls section
- The Washington Post's On Politics, Polls section
- New York Times/CBS Election Surveys
- Progressive Review's "Morning Line" - moving average of current polls, also state-by-state
  [caution: some critics question the Progressive Review's reliance on the Rasmussen polls, which use telephone recorded menus, asking respondents to press telephone buttons to answer the poll questions. See Rasmussen's description of their methodology here.]

2000 Election Polls