Only 31 states will be exit polled this year :-(

[Joe Republic]

Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning.

Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Thursday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs.

The 19 states not being polled are: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Sucks, but at least none of them are exactly nail biters.

[Governor Spamage]

Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning.

Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Thursday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs.

The 19 states not being polled are: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Sucks, but at least none of them are exactly nail biters.

Being Polled
Not Being Polled

[Bandit3 the Worker]

They still need to release the exit poll results from 2002 that The Media suppressed.

[All life is a blur of Republicans and meat.]

Terrible news. They might as well not do any exit polls now and just let us be surprised by the results. No sense in having incomplete data.

And doesn't this mean the networks won't be able to make projections in those states until a lot of the raw vote is in now?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I wonder if it's some sort of cover-up to steal the election (with complicity from The Media, as always).

[cinyc]

Terrible news. They might as well not do any exit polls now and just let us be surprised by the results. No sense in having incomplete data.

And doesn't this mean the networks won't be able to make projections in those states until a lot of the raw vote is in now?

Probably.  And the delay won't be uniform.  16 of the 20 jurisdictions without exit polls (19 states + DC) are Republican-leaning.

North Dakota has a close Senate race.  And exit polling New York and California but not Texas is just bizarre.

[Gass3268]

I doubt it will happen, but I'd love for one of these states to go in a direction totally different from what is expected and the media won't be able to explain it. It would serve them right for cheeping out!

Also why would they keep Alabama and Mississippi but not Georgia and South Carolina?

[cinyc]

I doubt it will happen, but I'd love for one of these states to go in a direction totally different from what is expected and the media won't be able to explain it. It would serve them right for cheeping out!

Also why would they keep Alabama and Mississippi but not Georgia and South Carolina?

Georgia has early voting, which increases polling costs.  Alabama and Mississippi do not.  But neither does South Carolina.  So who knows?

[memphis]

I already knew the candidates didn't care about my vote. Now the news doesn't either. Super weak! And TX a very strange state to ignore. It's an EC goldmine with interesting demographics. Contrast that with MS, where every white person votes Republican and every black person votes Democratic. Hardly even worth polling. You could just look at the Census data.

[Senator Sbane]

No Georgia or Texas polling? This is ridiculous. And considering there could be considerable tightening of the race in TN from 2008, it would have been interesting to compare the exit polls from 2008 to 2012.

[Mister Twister]

Notice how there have virtually no polls from safe states this year? The EC is rapidly causing many states to be ignored.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

In most of those safe states, "exit polling" was probably illegal until a few years ago...

ok...enough with the schtick. It would still be interesting to see how some of those states actually break down in their votes.

[Mister Twister]

Wait, why the hell is KANSAS being polled?

[bore]

How much does an exit poll actually cost?

[True Federalist]

Wait, why the hell is KANSAS being polled?

Possibly the local media is willing to pay for it.

[Senator Snowstalker]

This is bullshit. Where can we go burn things?

But seriously, this is a stupid decision, especially when TX and GA have interesting trends.

[greenforest32]

Is this consortium the only place doing national/50 state exit polls?

[Tender Branson]

Is this consortium the only place doing national/50 state exit polls?

Yep. And they cite "money problems", even though they have the same budget for exit polls like 4 years ago.

[greenforest32]

Is this consortium the only place doing national/50 state exit polls?

Yep. And they cite "money problems", even though they have the same budget for exit polls like 4 years ago.

That is terrible then. Especially the decision to drop aforementioned states like Texas and Georgia...

[Tender Branson]

Is this consortium the only place doing national/50 state exit polls?

Yep. And they cite "money problems", even though they have the same budget for exit polls like 4 years ago.

That is terrible then. Especially the decision to drop aforementioned states like Texas and Georgia...

Indeed.

They should change KS, MD and VT - which are polled - and replace them with ND, TX and GA.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning.

Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Thursday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs.

The 19 states not being polled are: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Sucks, but at least none of them are exactly nail biters.

They're not, but they should be polled.  It's not really fair to claim you're exit polling the whole country when you leave out so many states.