Why the press wrote the Obama surge story so hard

The debate over why the polls in New Hampshire were so wrong is still raging on this side of the Atlantic. An agenda-setting op-ed by the top pollster Andy Kohut in the New York Times says that it is all about race, while others think that it is all to do with gender. To my mind, the most persuasive argument is that the polls underestimated Hillary’s support because she picked up the votes of those who were planning to back Democratic candidates who dropped out after Iowa.

Like pretty much everyone else who was in New Hampshire, I’ve been thinking about why everyone (including yours truly) got it so very wrong. One explanation that I’ve come up with is that we all saw what was going on in Iowa—a significant Obama poll lead and huge crowds—but caveated the story to death because there was a feeling that the Clintons would pull it out somehow.