At the national level at least, most pollsters who projected the large Obama turnout were correct. In Minnesota, where we were told to expect 80% turnout, the current statistics are for 77.8%. Remember that in MN, that number includes first-time voters and those registering at the polling stations as having moved from previous districts. There were over half a million such folks yesterday. I do not know a single person that did not vote yesterday, despite many saying their early visits to the precincts were greeted with much longer-than-normal wait times. (I did not wait at all voting at 8:45AM.)

I think pollsters had the Bachmann-Tinklenberg race about right. Probably a little too pessimistic on Erik Paulsen, whose race ought to be a lesson to most people that walking and knocking on every door in your district still works. As to the Coleman-Franken race, that race was probably tighter than most expected. Given the national trends on Senate versus House, I see the possible storyline being that Obama's vaunted turnout machine did exactly what was advertised -- in heavily Democratic districts, they turned out their voters in larger numbers than in the past. I'll work up a spreadsheet on that for MN in a day or two.

And as commenters noted correctly, the whole Bradley effect discussion turned out to be completely wrong. President-elect Obama did not over-poll.

Labels: elections, Minnesota