Wouldn't a Late Surge for Bush be Opposite of Historical Voting Patterns?

[smartvoter]

Setting aside issues of Bush overcoming statistical probabilities that are basically equivalent to winning the lottery, which is critical to making the case for an investigation, there are some basic reasons to question the late surge for Bush that caused a late deviation from the exit polls. Some of the commonly cited reasons are that they all broke his way, for example (which ties in to the lottery winning theme), but isn't the very idea of a late surge for the Republican candidate opposite of historic trends?

Hasn't one of the classic battles on voting day been between Dems, who want to keep the polls open late so blue-collar types (that lean their way) can vote, and Republicans, who want to shut them down as early as possible?

Am I missing something, or has anyone else had the same thought? This has been a bug in my ear for weeks.

[bullimiami]

1. Think on this.

EVERY historic precedent, exit poll, approval poll, everything says Bush should not have won.

Even post election polling still shows his approval, approval for iraq, approval for policies etc under 50%.

How often after Dec 2 have you heard people who are trying to figure out how some fact or stat fits in with Bush winning the election?

There is ONE fact that answers all of the questions and causes all of the ducks to get in line. The election was fraudulant, rigged, wrong.

[jsascj]

2. Good point...

I have also questioned the various explanations (Repubs vote later, skewed samples, etc) for the exits being 'wrong' this year.

Why were they so wrong THIS year and yet never in any other year? Did Repubs SUDDENLY start voting later this year? Is this the first year they over polled women and/or younger voters? Of course not and I have not heard any explanations for that. Because they know that they were RIGHT this year as they always are.

[tuvor]

3. You guys just don't understand

All of this is just further proof of divine intervention.

(I'm joking. But I'll bet there are plenty of bushkissers who'll say this with a straight face.)

[smartvoter]

4. Unfortunately, you are right.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

5. We can't make any assumptions without the raw data

but we can ascertain that even after their own re-weighting and other evaluation, the pollsters felt that Kerry was winning certain states by 1 and 2%, or they would not have said so.
Something is wrong, and I don't think it was the exits.