If Obama's doing this well in ND, shouldn't he be ahead in SD as that's slighly more favourable to Democrats? What does anyone reckon polling currently is in SD?
We've had this discussion before, and it's hard to pin-point. South Dakota is more an anti-incumbent, anti-establishment state than North Dakota is; Bush probably underperformed. North Dakota also has more moderate Protestants.
In the 2004 exit poll, a full 54% of North Dakotans were moderate, while 33% were conservative and 13% were liberal. In South Dakota, things are a bit more polarized -- moderates were 45%, conservatives 39%, liberals 16%.
So, take the 2004 numbers and adjust both states to Kerry winning moderates 58-42. This is totally arbitrary, and ignores the swings with other groups, obviously, but go with me. The end result would swing South Dakota from Bush +23.8 to Bush +14.4 (swing=9.4). However, in North Dakota, the swing would be from Bush +27.2 to Bush +11.6 (swing=15.6).
In other words, North Dakota has more moderates, and they tend to be more fluid. It's not surprising that he'd be doing better in ND than SD. But I do want more polls from both.
