The Contact Gap: Proof of the Importance of the Ground Game?

From fivethirtyeight.com:

One of the more interesting questions posed on this year's exit polls was whether the voter had been contacted by the Obama and McCain campaigns personally about getting out to vote. Unfortunately, the exit poll consortium did not ask this question in all states, but it did in a dozen or so competitive states; these figures are summarized below:

% of Voters Reporting Direct Contact from Campaigns

State Obama McCain Gap
NV 50% 29% 21%
CO 51% 34% 17%
IN 37% 22% 15%
VA 50% 38% 12%
PA 50% 39% 11%
IA 41% 30% 11%
FL 29% 20% 9%
NC 34% 26% 8%
MO 44% 37% 7%
OH 43% 36% 7%
WI 42% 39% 3%
WV 29% 31% -2%

The Obama campaign had a superior contact rate in 11 of the 12 battlegrounds; the only exception was West Virginia. Wisconsin was also relatively close, perhaps because Obama redirected its legion number of Illinois-based volunteers from Wisconsin to Indiana a couple of weeks in advance of the election.

The largest gaps, however, were in Indiana and out west in Colorado and Nevada, all places where Obama outperformed his polls on election day.

The rest of the story is pretty fascinating to those of us involved in Obama's ground game. Check out the rest here.