Exit Pollsters Blow N.H. Race

Exit pollsters began trying Wednesday to learn why a voter survey in New Hampshire had overstated Democratic support so badly that news organizations declared Republican Sen. Bob Smith the loser in his re-election bid - a call the actual vote proved wrong.

“I guess you could say I’ve been to hell and back in one night,” Smith said early Wednesday at his victory celebration in Manchester, N.H.

Officials at Voter News Service, which conducted the survey, said they suspect that Republican voters refused more often than Democrats to participate in the New Hampshire exit poll.

No similar problem was evident in more than 110 other races covered by the news service’s exit polls Tuesday, all of them projected correctly, including the presidential contest in every state.

The Associated Press and its partners in the news service - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox proclaimed Democrat Dick Swett the winner over Smith when polls closed in New Hampshire, based on exit poll interviews with 2,355 voters in 25 precincts statewide.

But official results gave Smith 49 percent and Swett 46 percent, with Ken Blevens of the Libertarian Party polling 5 percent.