Continuing our new US presidential election feature, where we dig in to the latest polls and loop in other data streams — like advertising figures, election results, voter registration trends and other measures that tell the story of the 2016 campaign.
282804 The number of the ballots cast in the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary, excluding writing-ins
Four days before the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, Gardner – the New Hampshire secretary of state and foremost defender of the state’s special status – predicted 282,000 voters would pull a Republican ballot, and 268,000 voters would select the Democratic ballot.
Gardner was nearly spot-on in predicting GOP turnout, but Democrats lagged. Fewer than 250,000 Democratic ballots were cast, excluding write-ins, according to statistics published on the secretary of state’s website.
Iowa has voted for the winner in the past three presidential elections (and that streak would go back to 1992 if we’re talking about the winner of the popular vote).
Then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry won neighbouring New Hampshire in 2004 – otherwise the state has picked the Electoral College winner in every election since 1980.
What does it mean that Republicans in these two states are more motivated, and independents are more interested in voting in the GOP race than the Democratic one? Probably nothing. Given the limited sample size of presidential elections in the modern primary era, there isn’t compelling evidence to suggest that Republicans have a leg up in Iowa and New Hampshire come November because voters in February found their contests more compelling.
$2.7m The amount of money Bernie Sanders is spending on TV and radio advertising this week
Sanders’ money advantage over Hillary Clinton continues to grow, according to data provided by The Tracking Firm, a group monitoring the airwaves.
Sanders is spending more than $2.7m on TV and radio ads for the week beginning Tuesday – hitting states from Nevada (Feb. 20) to South Carolina (Feb. 27) to a number of March 1 states, like Colorado, Oklahoma and Minnesota.
By contrast, Clinton is only spending a total of $1.2m this week. That means she’s getting outspent by a wide margin in Nevada, for example: Sanders is spending nearly $1.1m in Nevada, almost double Clinton’s $544,000.
And given Sanders’ online fundraising blitz this week – his campaign says he raised more than $7m online after winning in New Hampshire – that advantage is unlikely to abate anytime soon.
$568,000 The amount Donald Trump is spending on advertising this week
Remember Donald Trump’s public statements that he intended to spend $2m a week leading up to Iowa and New Hampshire? That didn’t last long.
Trump, who is partially self-funding his campaign, has slowed his ad spending considerably. Then again, given his nearly 20-point victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday, he didn’t need to out-spend his rivals.
Trump is only spending $568,000 this week, mostly in South Carolina. Last week, in the week leading up to the New Hampshire primary, he spent $864,000 total in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
46 The number of public New Hampshire GOP primary polls released between January 1 and the primary
The New Hampshire polls were right – perhaps in part because of a rich volume of data, much of it conducted right up until the final 24 hours of the campaign. The landslide wins from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were largely expected, given the large leads both men had in pre-election polls.
3 The Number of Public South Carolina GOP primary polls released between January 1 and Friday
After the New Hampshire polling bonanza, Republicans move to South Carolina, where there have been few public polls this year. Just three have been released so far, according to RealClearPolitics – with only one, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, conducted by live phone interviewers.
There will be a handful of new polls over the next week, but there won’t be the rich trove of data there was before New Hampshire.
