It seemed like I’d noticed Obama significantly outperforming the polls since February 5. Which led my curious mind to wonder if he might do so in Texas and Ohio as well.
So I threw together an utterly unsophisticated spreadsheet to see what’s happened, and what might happen. It pretty much speaks for itself. The poll numbers are pollster.com’s last estimates for Obama before the primary/caucus. Where they hadn’t compiled an estimate I averaged the recent poll numbers that they did show. Some states missing because there were no recent polls.
| Polls | Actual | Over/Underperformed | |
| WI | 59 | 58 | -2% |
| WA | 52 | 68 | 32% |
| VA | 55 | 64 | 16% |
| MN | 28 | 66 | 140% |
| MD | 54 | 60 | 11% |
| DC | 63 | 75 | 19% |
| AL | 44 | 56 | 27% |
| Average: | 35% | ||
| Projected | |||
| OH | 40 | 53 | |
| TX | 46 | 62 |
Update: Mainly in response to comments over at DailyKos. First, this is just a Sunday-morning lark. If it’s even vaguely correct I’ll be totally amazed. Second, if you remove Minnesota it comes out: Texas 54, Ohio 47.