This is sad. The South Carolina Democratic party offers a poll to insist the governor’s race isn’t over:
A new poll completed just last evening shows some significant positive movement for Vincent Sheheen, with the race a virtual dead heat. Nikki Haley leads Sheheen 45%-41%, within the poll’s margin of error of 3.9%. Thirteen percent remain undecided.
The poll was conducted by South Carolina pollster Crantford & Associates. The survey involved 634 active registered South Carolina voters. Data collection occurred Thursday September the 30th between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM.
It appears to be a poll of registered, not likely voters; the poll results indicate that the “Yes” responses to “Do you plan to vote in the governor’s election?” are 100 percent. The only other pollster who’s been surveying in this state is Rasmussen, who has Haley’s lead between 12 and 17 percentage points — among likely voters.
Looking at the internals, I notice this poll is 58 percent women, 42 percent men. That seems a little high; in 2008, the exit poll for South Carolina put it at 56 percent women, 44 percent men.
They have 21 percent of South Carolinians “undecided” between Jim DeMint and Alvin Greene.
Also, oddly, this poll skews much older than Election Day 2008; only 13 percent of South Carolina’s electorate was 65 and older in 2008, while 34 percent of this sample is 65 and over. We should expect older voters to make up a larger share of the electorate in 2010, but that’s a big shift . . .