Poll: Hillary Facing Close General Election In New Hampshire

Comments (19)

gqmartinez wrote on September 12, 2007 2:30 PM:

The other polls showing Clinton winning in other states are irrelevant thanks to this poll. Phew! I'm glad we can use this one poll to show how unelectable she is.

Eric Kleefeld wrote on September 12, 2007 2:35 PM:

I don't know how you would get that impression, considering just an hour ago I posted on a poll showing her to be the strongest Democrat in Florida.

It's not at all inconsistent to say she does well in Florida, badly in Colorado, okay in Ohio, etc.

It would, however, be inconsistent if I only posted on one particular category.

anns wrote on September 12, 2007 2:35 PM:

Polls are meaningless at this point. But, what makes NH interesting is that

1. Basically anyone who wants to hear, meet and vet Senator Clinton can do so. The independents who say they won't vote for her have met her.

2. Its large independent cohort of voters makes it more of a purple state that votes blue. That makes it a sort of bellweather.

I don't have a pony in this race but it is an interesting and unsual state. Still, at this point, polls are meaningless.

kjoe wrote on September 12, 2007 2:43 PM:

If the republicans are dumbshit enough to have 40 percent of them believing Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11, how dumb are the democrats?

Dumb enough to be swept up by this unending barrage of daily cheerleading by the centrist press more intereswted in future access than they are in objective reporting.

American wrote on September 12, 2007 3:03 PM:

Before we start to bash Hillary and say how unelectable she is, NH went for Kerry by less than a percent and Gore lost the state in 2000. It is a purple state, but in the end, it should come out for the Democrats (i.e. Hillary)

anns wrote on September 12, 2007 3:21 PM:

No one said Senator Clinton was unelectable. It is important to remember (and I hope all the Dems keep this in mind) that no one gives up power without a fight. Whoever gets the nomination will face a tough, tough, tough battle. If you were a gazillionaire would you want sane tax policies reenacted?

Jan wrote on September 12, 2007 3:36 PM:

Good crosstabs. Thanks for the information.

I'm from New Hampshire.
Both Clinton's crowds and Obama's crowds are truly awesome. I wish you all could be here.
As an aside, I'm a Clinton supporter and I'm also a registered Independent, so it's best to stop with the predictions about Independents in New Hampshire and Hillary Clinton's "electibility."

It IS early for polls, but it's not early for trends, and I'm a big stats person.

Eric, I don't see where the trends in NH, with this poll thrown in, give Senator Clinton any pause whatsoever.

I think Giuliani IS probably her hardest opponent in NH, but I really can't imagine Rudy getting the nomination. I know I could be wrong, but I note that about 50% of Republicans don't know he's peo-choice. It seems to me that's going to be a problem, unless all the GOP "pro-life" bullshit has been bullshit. (And, because I'm pro-choice, I would truly welcome that change in the GOP platform.)

From my ear on the ground, I also wouldn't discount Ron Paul in New Hampshire when the GOP votes are finally counted.

And I think Romney is probably up in the polls here in NH just for constantly bashing Massachusetts. (Just kidding)

Thanks again!

mikeel wrote on September 12, 2007 3:52 PM:

In 2006 in NH, it was all about the war. Remember, the state is still anti-tax, and that could dragging Hillary down a bit.

gqmartinez wrote on September 12, 2007 3:55 PM:

Hey Eric, I was being facetious and making an observation: namely, polls that show Hillary doing well are greeted with "polls this early are meaningless"; polls showing Hillary losing are often taken as proof of her weakness. I find that absurd. I think you all are doing fine here at TPMEC.

john mccutchen wrote on September 12, 2007 4:09 PM:

Chillary Chow Fun

Rod Ham Asks Hsu Bundlees to Give Her 850,000 Bucks Back to Her

bob wrote on September 12, 2007 4:17 PM:

gq, what happens is that some Hillary people go nuts every time there is a poll showing her doing well in general election match-ups, then the rest of us tell them that they are overreacting to early polls, and then they insult everyone else.

Anonymous wrote on September 12, 2007 4:19 PM:

gqmartinez wrote on September 12, 2007 3:55 PM:

Hey Eric, I was being facetious and making an observation: namely, polls that show Hillary doing well are greeted with "polls this early are meaningless"; polls showing Hillary losing are often taken as proof of her weakness. I find that absurd. I think you all are doing fine here at TPMEC.

I did get the gist of your original post and I thought it was right on the money. For the anti-HRC folks, polls are meaningless as long as they show her leading. When earlier polls showed her losing to McCain and Giuliani in head-to-head match ups, those polls were cited ad nauseam as evidence that HRC was unelectable in GE. Now, things have changed: I am yet to find a single poll in HRC is trailing a Repub AND another Dem candidate leading that same Repub. It is more likely that HRC would be leading all the Repubs, and Obama and Edwards would trailing those same Repubs. That is why, we are not hearing anymore about how polls show that HRC was unelectable because she was weak against the Repubs. On the flip side, those same recent polls DO actually SHOW that HRC has gained strength while Obama and Edwards have lost strength as the season got older. Conclusion: HRC is the more electable Dem. Predict that she will keep getting stronger, and would win the nomination by a landslide.

Daniel wrote on September 12, 2007 4:22 PM:

Polls are all over the place. What to make of Clinton's weakness in NH when we look at her strenght in FLorida? She is so much stronger than all other candidates there!

www.campaigndiaries.com

phil james wrote on September 12, 2007 5:22 PM:

Question. Are polls meaningful if they indicate that the American public is about 70 percent against continuing Bush's misbegotten war in Iraq but not meaningful if they indicate that Hillary may be a loser for the Dems, at least in one state? Just asking.

oleeb wrote on September 12, 2007 6:44 PM:

How shocking! Hillary is going to have a tough time in some places in the general election! Duh!

I like Hillary. I will cast my vote for her if she is the nominee, but this survey shows the real problem for Democrats, especially those who think nominating Hillary is a wise choice: she's the only one who could realistically lose the November race against the Republicans. Why? Because she starts with such a huge number of people who are simply unwilling to consider voting for her. Her negatives are astounding.

2008 should be a year of a massive Democratic landslide. If Hillary is the nominee it will not be a landslide year. She might get elected President, but if she does it will be at the cost of potentially hundreds of other offices that would have gone Democratic if it weren't for her ego and the refusal of many of her supporters to understand that as a candidate she has an very clear and vulnerable weakness. Any of the other "leading" candidates would be elected by comfortable margins next year, but there's simply no way that could or would occur with her.

I hope her supporters will thoughtfully consider the ramifications of her candidacy if she were to become the nominee. If they do, I think they would agree that her candidacy is apt to weigh down other Democrats and waste a giant opportunity for Democrats to establish real political dominance at the federal level for the first time in almost 30 years.

phil james wrote on September 12, 2007 6:58 PM:

Question: Are Hillary's negatives among independents real, i.e. her candidacy would be a problem for Dems, or is this just one more Rovian myth perpetuated as conventional wisdom by the Fox Ministry of Disinformation and other (need I say gullible) members of the fourth estate?

CalD wrote on September 12, 2007 7:13 PM:

Here's a little piece of political trivia for you that passed unnoticed in 2004. New Hampshire tends to be a swing state in presidential elections but has always leaned a tad Republican. Bush won there by about 1% in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote nationwide. In 2004, John Kerry, a popular senator from neighboring Massachusetts where many New Hampshire residents work and/or get their news coverage, carried NH by just 1% (50/49).

The day after the '04 election (after bandaging my wrists), I found myself wondering when the last time was that a Democrat had carried NH in a year when a Republican won. I checked back through historical election results at uselectionatlas.org and found that in the entire 148 years since the first Republican presidential candidate, from 1856 to 2004 this had happened just that once. However NH had gone for the Republican in years when a Democrat won the election 7 times in that same period (not including 2000).

So if early polls in NH are showing a Democratic and Republican candidate roughly tied in a hypothetical match-up, I would not regard that as particularly surprising. If anything, it might be a somewhat hopeful sign for Democrats, given that pronounced historical preference for Republican candidates.

OkieFromMuskogee wrote on September 13, 2007 9:46 AM:

These stats don't mean much by themselves. How would Edwards or Obama have done against the same hypothetical Republican nominees? I suspect that either one would do better than Hillary because of Hillary's high negatives. (yes, she has high negatives. That's not a Rovian myth. All I need to do to confirm that is visit for a while with my neighbors.)

Could we please stop beating up on the "Hillary is unelectable" straw man? I happen to think that she is the weakest Democrat in the general election, but if nominated she might win anyway. Might.

Larry Geater wrote on September 13, 2007 10:23 AM:

Phil James asked if Hillary's negatives among independents real. I believe so. She even has high negatives amongst some life long democrats like myself. I would suck it up and vote for her like I did for Kerry but I am tired of voting against the republican. We have several people running this time that I could vote for. I will vote for Sen Obama in the primary and would be voting for him in the general. I would vote for Sen Biden or Edwards in the general. If Sen Clinton is the nominee I will once again be voting against the GOP nominee and I am sick to death of that. The best she will ever be to me is the lesser of two evils.

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