First, a reminder: if you are on this site looking for leaked exit polls, don’t bother. There are no exit polls because no one envisioned the race being close enough to justify the expense. All we have to go on are snatches of information gleaned from various websites that may or may not be a) representative of what’s really happening and b) significant.
Meanwhile, trying to discern turnout from the various online news sources offers a fascinating insight into the psychology of Brown and Coakley supporters, but very little in the way of reliable news. I’ve been switching between the websites of the two major Boston papers, the Globe and the Herald, both of which have live comments section describing what people are seeing at the polls. For those of you not familiar with these papers, the Herald is a tabloid that caters to the shot and beer crowd, while the Globe (which is owned by the NY Times) attracts the Chablis sippers. In my days living in Massachusetts, I read the Herald for the local news, and the Globe for national reporting. Not surprisingly, Brown supporters are out in force on the Herald site. Surprisingly, however, they are frequenting the Globe website in about equal numbers with the Coakley supporters. I did a rough count of about 200 respondents from the city of Boston, which is expected to be a strong Coakley area. In my completely unscientific sample (keeping in mind that those who decide to write into the Globe are also a self-selected sample), Coakley was winning about 58% of the Boston Commenters’ votes. Of equal interest, turnout seemed to be, for want of a better word, “moderate” at least based on readers’ reports. That seems consistent with Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s guesstimate of a turnout range of between 1.6 million and 2.2 million voters – or 40%-55% – out of a total of 4 million registered voters. Galvin said more than 105,000 voters have applied for absentee ballots.
Meanwhile, reading the comments on some of the more highly trafficked and opinionated websites is hilarious. Every once in a while I’ll see something like this, usually from a Coakley supporter (since most of these websites tilt Left): “Turnout through the roof! Nary a Brown sign in sight! Yes we can!” I can’t tell if it’s whistling in the graveyard or a legitimate report. But it’s entertaining!
More in a bit… .