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In this article, the authors document a new pre-election polling method that combines traditional probability sampling in statewide polls with sampling of bellwether districts. Against the backdrop of the 2008 presidential primary in New Hampshire, the authors explain how the Suffolk University/WHDH predictions, using additional bellwether tests, were closer than most other polls in correctly calling the Democratic primary race. Thus, the contributions in this article are twofold. The authors offer information that provides advances to the field of opinion research by describing the nature of electoral bellwether districts, a topic of recurring interest to public opinion scholars and practitioners. Second, they describe a process for selecting electoral bellwether districts. The authors explore the validity of their ideas by comparing pre-election poll data with bellwether tests to election outcomes for additional races in the state primaries and general election. They offer conclusions about the value and use of bellwether tests in the spirit of an open-source methodology to the opinion research community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many school districts in the United States allow parents to choose which school their child attends ('school choice' or 'magnet schools') while other school districts require students to attend their nearest ('neighborhood') school. Such policies influence children's transportation. We survey elementary-school parents in St. Paul and Roseville, Minnesota, to discover how children travel to school and underlying factors influencing parent's choice of their child's travel mode. From this information we develop a statistical model of travel mode choice. We find that children's commute mode and parental attitudes towards school selection differ by school type (magnet versus neighborhood), income, and race. Relative to neighborhood schools, magnet schools draw from broader geographic regions, have lower rates of walking, bicycling, and commuting by automobile, and higher busing rates. Parent attitudes towards transportation also differ by race and school type. For example, parents of nonwhite and magnet school students placed greater-than-average importance on bus service and quality. This paper highlights the potentially unintended influence of school district policy on school commute mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]