Pollsters poll poor performance

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Pollsters struggled to explain how they failed to predict presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton's win in the New Hampshire primary.

The majority of surveys predicted Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would win the GOP contest but most had Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., beating Clinton, D-N.Y., by as much as 10 percentage points, USA Today said Thursday.

Pollsters emerged the day after Tuesday's New Hampshire primary offering apologies and further speculations on how they got it so wrong.

"It's absolutely a cautionary tale to both the people who do polls and the people who read polls," said Richard Morin with the Pew Research Center. Morin also referred to New Hampshire as "the graveyard of political pollsters."

Pollsters pointed to the record turnout as a reason behind the failed prediction, while others point out that as much as 17 percent of voters in the primary were undecided up to the point of casting their ballot.

Frank Newport with the Gallup Poll and John Zogby of the polling firm bearing his name point to other answers, such as a varying percentage of older woman voters and people who changed their minds in the voting booth.

Another possibility USA Today cited was that most polls examined opinions prior to Saturday's televised presidential debate and Clinton's show of emotion Monday.