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Gallup: Obama Leads Clinton By Nine Points
Today's Gallup tracking poll gives Barack Obama a nine-point national lead over Hillary Clinton, well outside the margin of error. Here are the numbers, compared to yesterday:
Obama 52% (+3)
Clinton 43% (-3)
Gallup's analysis notes that Obama had an especially good polling day on Sunday, possibly owing to the combination of Mark Penn's demotion and media coverage of the Clintons' tax returns. We'll find out in the next few days whether this is just statistical noise, or something sustainable.
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Mm-hmm. It's probably that Pakistani-American vote making the difference.
April 7, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!
April 7, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Granted, this poll was conducted before Americans were aware that Obama went to Pakistan with Tony Rezko to train and arm Islamic terrorists. My guess is that the American people will not take to that information kindly.
April 7, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
ha! I agree...that won't help him in the polls.
April 7, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Wright was there encouraging them the whole time!
April 7, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I believe Wright traveled to Pakistan at a later date, with Farrakhan, to finalize the deals made earlier by Obama and Rezko.
April 7, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, nooo... much worse than that. Wright and Farrakhan went to Pakistan to meet with Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong-Il to represent Obama's interests in nailing down the Dirty-Bomb Safe-Harbor Treaty. Just wait 'til Mark Penn finds out!
April 7, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could we ask the important question: WAS ANYONE WEARING A FLAG PIN?
April 7, 2008 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I'm pretty sure Hugo Chavez funded the whole thing.
(We laugh, but wait until our crazy Republican relative or FOF forwards the next email to us.)
April 7, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reading the last five or six comments was like a getting a preview of the GOP's fall campaign strategy.
April 7, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently Obama's new campaign strategist is helping with the increase in his polling numbers.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/clinton_man_has_obama_moment.html
April 7, 2008 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
How would Mark Penn's demotion have had an impact on the polls since the news of his demotion came late last night?
April 7, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
My vote is noise. She may have a continued hit today because of Penn, but it won't last.
April 7, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please stop covering these fluctuations. In 3 days it will be close again and you'll be breathlessly posting about how Clinton has narrowed the gap. Only to make another breathless post a few days later about Obama expanding his lead....
April 7, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not THAT breathless. I didn't see a single exclamation point. Some of us like seeing the fluctuations. There's no such thing as bad information if it is given the proper interpretation.
April 7, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not a front page worthy post.
April 7, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
But, uh, there is no "second page" on Election Central.
April 7, 2008 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I second that. Enough with this day-to-day parsing of "daily, Bi-weekly, weekly polls".
April 7, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
My take on this:
This is a small bounce inside statistical noise. Obama is slightly ahead of Clinton nationally but that margin will increase as his inevitability sets in. That inevitability will be the only external influence that will significantly affect the national poll numbers from here on out. Locally, campaign advertisements will be the deciding driver.
April 7, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It will be hard to stop riding the bucking bronco.
It is circular logic but this is news because the press has made it news in the past. To not report the Obama upswing in the polls would be seen as partisan since so much has been made of his downturns.
Btw, that goes for just about all the "major" political stories i.e. supporter's gaffs and calls for firings. If a big deal was not made about Samantha Powers, few would have cared about Geraldine Ferraro
April 7, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally agree. The herd mentality that pervades political reporting is just disconcerting.
April 7, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is something very telling about the tracking poll chart for the past seven days.
In the past seven days, Senator Clinton has not made any inroads into Senator Obama's level of support.
He has kept all his support, while Hillary just flucutuates up and down with small gains and losses from the small remaining undecided camp. She never catches him, and she never takes away any of his support. Now, this latest chart shows him having added 3% to his support level at th expense of Senator Clinton who lost that entire 3%.
This a very significant indicator. In none of the past seven days has Senator Obama dropped any of his support level, and has now ended up expanding it above the very important 50% level. Meanwhile Senator Clinton has not been able to sustain any minor surges that she has had on a given day. She keeps dropping back and is now facing the the situation where getting all the undecided to go to her, would still leave her trailing Senator Obama.
What that means is: she now has to drive up Senator Obama's negatives in order to drop his support below the 50% level.
Watch for the Clinton Camp to go super negative now.
April 7, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Obama May Not Have Fully Contained
Damage From Ex-Pastor;"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120752539182393613.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news
Playing the race card did not work.
Duh.
April 7, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently, your compatriats in the field are vandalizing his offices and drawing Swastikas on his campaign signs......thank you for doing your bit for the day buddy.
I'm absolutely sure this xenophobia will reach a point- we American will feel ashamed of ourselves,and will overcome our fears;
You, and your GOP buddies will exploit and abuse Wright to a point Americans will ashamed of themselves and I, for one, want to see what will happen next.
April 7, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know. Hillary tried her best, but it just didn't work...
April 7, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
The headline doesn't really fit with the copy.
It has 2 people saying Wright is an issue:
"It has not been defused," says David Parker, a North Carolina Democratic Party official and unpledged superdelegate
"Al Neyman, a 76-year-old from Indianapolis, said that he had been on the fence between the two Democrats until learning about Sen. Obama's pastor. "To me, he's un-American sitting in that church hearing those kinds of things and not leaving," he says."
But it also says:
"National polls show the Illinois senator hasn't suffered among Democratic primary voters"
"The Wright question is a nonissue for Chris Redfern, an undecided superdelegate and the chair of the Ohio Democratic Party"
"Exploiting the issue could also alienate Clinton supporters. "I have many, many friends who are involved with [the Clinton] campaign, but I have to say, what I find them doing is deeply disappointing," says Tripp Jones, a Clinton supporter and Massachusetts Democrat who worked on Michael Dukakis's 1988 presidential bid."
"I'm not voting for his pastor," says Mike Maloney, 60, a self-described conservative independent from Highland, Ind., who is supporting Sen. Obama."
April 7, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
NICE.
April 7, 2008 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
still waiting for a poll to indicate how much Tuzla and Mark Penn have hurt Clinton's chances in the fall.
...waiting.
April 7, 2008 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is about as expected and similar to Rasmussen. Obama's been outside the margin of error on Gallup polls for awhile now. RCP average puts him at +6.8. I'm sure we'll see some fluctuation, probably a 50-44 split by midweek, but the general trend is he's ahead and gaining slowly, but steadily.
April 7, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
This report once again shows that weekly trend that has been noticed. Obama bonces on the weekends and Clinton bounces (somewhat less) in mid-week.
As liam also noted, Obama has not dropped below 49% for some time now, so his fluctuation is between 49 and 52, whereas Clinton's is between 42 and 46. If you average that out, for about 10 days the trend is Obama 50 and Clinton 44, outside the margin of error.
April 7, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This report once again shows that weekly trend that has been noticed. Obama bonces on the weekends and Clinton bounces (somewhat less) in mid-week.
As liam also noted, Obama has not dropped below 49% for some time now, so his fluctuation is between 49 and 52, whereas Clinton's is between 42 and 46. If you average that out, for about 10 days the trend is Obama 50 and Clinton 44, outside the margin of error.
April 7, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree that this is noise. Yes, it is only one day and is likely to bounce around a fair amount in the coming days, but the polls show signs of stabliizing to some degree. Rasmussen has had Obama opening up a sizable lead over the last week or so - with the last 3 days being over the important 50% mark. Gallup has had Obama leading by more than the MOE for almost 2 weeks now.
There are a lot of signs pointing to the Dem party realizing that the race is over and coalescing around Obama. There has been a sort of acceptance in the collective conciousness that Obama is the nominee made over the last week or so. Certainly not everyone is on board yet (gotalife?) but this is the beginning of the end.
Incidently this is also showing up in the head to heads against McCain, Obama has improved and Clinton has lost a bit.
April 7, 2008 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
All while listening to the musical stylings of Harry Belafonte....
April 7, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Urgggh. That was supposed to be in reply to this:
April 7, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would really rather see the comparison with McCain. I see that the Republicans and their far right shills are far ahead of the democratic and freedom loving patriots in selling Petraeus and the surge. The Democrats are going to pi** away the perfect opportunity to regain control and return liberty to the republic. Of course, we will have Hillary to thank for this. I had supported Hillary at the beginning. Seeing her "win at all cost strategy" and seeing that she is willing to destroy the Democrats chances have turned me around.
April 7, 2008 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
speaking of the Clinton tax return, what could their justification be for filing for one? Lack of funds?
April 7, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Martin Luther King 40th anniversary of his assassination may have boosted Obama.
It'll probably fade back to a statistical tie in the next few days.
April 7, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
??? Obama's lead in Gallup hasn't been within the MOE since 3/26 -- that is almost 2 weeks. Also, overall, he has his largest lead of the campaign and has been clearly pulling away for a while now
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/democratic_presidential_nomination-191.html
April 7, 2008 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's 9-point lead is meaningless. Odd numbers don't count.
Signed,
Howard Wolfson
April 7, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bad news. I hear Kim is a pretty mean bowler. In the Osama-IL-Obama bowling match he rolled a 279. Pesky 7 pin didn't go down in the eighth frame but he converted a spare, everything else was a strike. Osama rolled a mediocre 166 and Obama fell flat with a 44, a little better than the 37 he recently shot.
I don;t think he will stand a chance in the "hard ball" dealing with those two.
Hillary on the other hand was there serving beers and everyone liked her.
April 7, 2008 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No poll or contest counts unless Hillary is the winner. If you only consider the people who selected Hillary in this poll, Hillary is leading.
Sincerely,
Kindergartners for Hillary!
April 7, 2008 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rock on, idiotic.
You magnificent bastard!
~
April 8, 2008 1:13 AM | Reply | Permalink