In the first few days after the 2004 presidential election, Steve Freeman was more perplexed than anything.
How could it be, the University of Pennsylvania professor wondered, that exit polls showing John Kerry would win most of the critical battleground states were wrong and that George W. Bush wound up winning the popular vote by almost 3.5 million?
(UW-Madison political science professors Ken Mayer and Charles Franklin, described as critics of Freeman’s research, are quoted.)