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Poll: Hillary Ahead By Five Points In Pennsylvania Primary
A new poll of Pennsylvania from Strategic Vision (R) shows Hillary Clinton still in the lead, but narrowly so. Here are the results, compared to last week:
Clinton 47% (-2)
Obama 42% (+1)
And the general election match-ups:
Clinton (D) 45%, McCain (R) 42%
McCain (R) 48%, Obama (D) 41%
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I'm going to say that SUSA was a big outlier..
April 9, 2008 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
That isn't exactly a big surprise.
What is apparent, from this and most other polls, is that Hillary beats McCain while Obama gets trounced. Would be interesting to know who this demographic is voting for Hillary but against Obama.
April 9, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
My best-guess at the demographic in question: Bitter Clinton supporters who, right now, would tell a pollster that they'd rather vote for George W. Bush than cast their vote for the horrible Senator Obama.
I said the same thing (that I wouldn't vote for Hillary) at the end of January when it looked like her race-bating worked and that she might finish Obama off on Super Tuesday.
It's tough to be gracious when you're in the thick of the right.
April 9, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
What polls are you looking at? There isn't one posted here on TPM right now that shows Clinton beating McCain anywhere at all. And in none of the polls, does McCain get "trounced" by anyone.
April 9, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Remember. She needs to win by at least 10% to call it a real victory. Gotta keep pushing that.
April 9, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
An Obamanoid attempting spin? Surely not!
April 9, 2008 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not spin. Do the math.
(She actually needs more like 20% in all the remaining states, but I don't want to make you too depressed. Once state at a time, Hillary fans!)
April 9, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"One" state*
April 9, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree. Obama couldn't win the expectations game in OH and he won't win it in PA either. The fantasy of pro-Obama media spin is just that--fantasy. The Clinton campaign has been able to make people forget how much ground Obama gains on them....hell, they managed to get people to ignore the little fact that Obama WON TEXAS! So nothing short of a win in PA is going to prevent the "HRC is still a contender!" meme.
The fact is, Obama has to meet an impossible standard in order to close this race down--he has to win everything, and win it convincingly. If the roles were reversed, of course, Obama would have been out of the race weeks ago; but the Clintons have more campaign lives than a cat.
It's all very puzzling to me--right down to the pro-HRC demographics in PA. Is the fact that she's white and/or a Clinton more important to PA blue-collar workers than her close ties to the Colombian trade deal, or the fact that she was on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors? One can only suppose so, especially after reading that nauseating article from last week about "Obama Girl's" hometown--you know, the one with those "Obama went to Iraq to meet with that Lama fellow" low-information voters. {{shudder}}
April 9, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Low information voters can be educated, it's the educated, delusional ones willing to mislead themselves that scare me.
Columbia, Wal-Mart, "24% of the African American vote to Clinton after the crap her campaign has pulled".
You probably also think that she cunningly tried to insinsuate Obama was a muslim in that 60 minutes interview.
Objective analysis can be a pain sometimes as you realize some of your views are wrong, but trust me, it's better in the long run.
I do agree that Obama is awful at managing media expectations (how he couldn't spin Texas as a huge victory I'l never know), but that doesn't mean there isn't a media bias for him. It's true that things have become much more balanced in the last month or so, however.
April 9, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dear me, I'm wounded to the core. lol I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm quite analytical--which also means I can recognize issues that ought to inspire knee-jerk reactions in certain types of voters (eg, Wal-Mart and Colombian trade).
I further disagree that low-information voters can necessarily be educated--hence the woman who thought Obama went to Iraq to meet some Lama guy. Seriously, you have to be intentionally avoiding information to be that clueless.
In any event, my reasons for supporting Obama, and opposing HRC, are quite rational, tangible, and are based in large part on a long history of observing the Clintons (including residence in Arkansas between 1978-1992)....things far too detailed to compress into a brief post on a discrete issue (PA voter trends).
Indeed, one might say that the delusional folks are the ones who don't grasp that 2 + 2 = 4, because they refuse to recognize that, mathematically speaking, the numbers are stacked so heavily against HRC that she's wasting everyone's time.
April 9, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Definitely makes SUSA an outlier....but I was always suspicious of the SUSA results....I mean, 24% of the African American vote to Clinton after the crap her campaign has pulled? I don't think so.
April 9, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eighteen points is the marker. Anything less than that is a Clinton defeat.
April 9, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, come on, don't be so coy. I think we have a pretty good idea what that "demographic" is.
April 9, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do share.
April 9, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
There you go being coy again.
April 9, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't hold out on me, dude.
April 9, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I had to guess why Obama was getting trounced in the general election poll:
If I was a Hillary supporter and that question came up, I would say McCain over Obama to strengthen my argument Hillary needs to win.
I'm not sure all those taking the poll would think like that, but it's a possibility.
I'm also curious how the numbers would be if the order of the questions were reversed. In the poll, they ask "If the election for President were held today and the choices were John McCain, the Republican, and Hillary Clinton, the Democrat for whom would you vote?" first.
What if they asked "If the election for President were held today and the choices were John McCain, the Republican, and Barack Obama, the Democrat for whom would you vote?" first?
In any case, I'm not to concerned about McCain trouncing Obama in the general. Once it becomes a two man race, and voters see Obama's economic policies and iraq policies are better than McCain's, he will catch up. It's easy to hate Obama when he's beating your favorite candidate, Hillary.
But once people realize the differences between Obama and McCain, I have no doubt the majority will want Change! over McSame.
April 9, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, Obama is not be "trounced" by Clinton... it is other way around... HRC has lost... the only question is when will he admit reality... she and GWB have so much in common...
April 9, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is excellent news for idiotic.
April 9, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pennsylvania is getting dangerously close to not counting!
April 9, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dangerously close. I'd bet Mark Penn's morning bowl of mayonnaise on it!
April 9, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
A five point loss will be the biggest victory for Barack thus far, however you can bet your bottom dollar- Hillary will win the primary with a easy double digit margin.
PA is OH in clinical depression
April 9, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The significant thing on this poll is not the primary match-up which is pretty much the same like every other polls but the GE election match-up.
Boy, if he is going to lose PA in general, then you can kiss his chance in November goodbye.
April 9, 2008 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think a GE match-up 7 months before the election is significant at all. Especially since McCain has had pretty much a free pass so far.
April 9, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some would say the same about Obama.
April 9, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Some" would, if they were FOX News viewers who bought into the "free media pass" garbage.
April 9, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
And they'd be wrong.
April 9, 2008 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have no idea whether it's true or not, we're going to have to wait to find out. I hope there aren't any more skeletons in his closet as it's likely he's going to win the nomination - or at least, if they are there, that they come out before it's too late. Hope doesn't make it so, though.
April 9, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait, what? Are we talking about the same thing?
I said "Especially since McCain has had pretty much a free pass so far," to which you replied, "Some would say the same about Obama."
It's quite clear that McCain has been getting a free pass in the media, certainly moreso than Obama.
April 9, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Those numbers cannot possibly hold up once a candidate can draw a direct, no-distraction contrast vs. McCain on the Iraq War. Is there a single state in the US where the majority of voters still support the war?
But if we want to go down that road, there are plenty of "important" states where Obama outperforms Clinton against McCain. Nevertheless, they're a waste of time at this point--let's not forget that John Kerry looked like a slam-dunk during the spring of '04.
April 9, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not even Texas supports the Iraq War!
April 9, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
How many "senior moments" can a candidate have before the public seriously starts to question his ability to be President.
April 9, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not really sure that I buy into the argument that a democrat cannot win without PA. Republicans do it, so it is mathematically possible. Nonetheless, let us dig a bit deeper into the premise of your contention here. You are willing to look at head-to-head polls 7 months out and prognosticate about real results in November - not altogether sound a strategy, but a temptation to which I myself have frequenly fallen victim, so I will not begrudge you the pleasure of playing "let's imagine."
With that in mind, do you care to tell me how Clinton can be understood to have any chance of winning in November if (as the polls show at present) she were to lose MN, OR, WA & WI to McCain in November? Those states total up to 28 electoral votes, more than PA's 21, and the current head-to-head polls all show Obama winning them and Clinton losing them. In other words, it is not obvious to me that current head-to-head polls should give us any more pause about Obama's chances than they give us about Clinton's.
April 9, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's the Hillary supporters who refuse to support the Democratic nominee if their girl is not on the ballot.
April 9, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
it's the delgates, people. PA and Ohio... Diebold capitals. Hillary = established machine politician. Supporting her is like supporting a dumb war monger. If PA can look off her votes on war and bankruptcy and snipers and moving goal posts and still vote for her then to that I say, WOW! I think when Diebold is in the mix though and you have a machine like Rendell and the gang then if Obama can pull within 5 percent that's good. I will not believe the totals if she pulls off a 10-17 victory. She doesn't really win like that. There is only one state she could win in with vote totals that high. Arkansas.
April 9, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
My best-guess at the demographic in question: Bitter Clinton supporters who, right now, would tell a pollster that they'd rather vote for George W. Bush than cast their vote for the horrible Senator Obama.
I said the same thing (that I wouldn't vote for Hillary) at the end of January when it looked like her race-bating worked and that she might finish Obama off on Super Tuesday.
It's tough to be gracious when you're in the thick of the right.
April 9, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's an idea:
WRITE OFF PENNSYLVANIA!
Here are just some of her advantages in this state:
- It's a closed primary.
- It shares a long border with her home state.
- It has the second-largest ratio of Senior Citizens after Florida.
- She has the backing of it's gregarious Governor.
Here's the frame:
'Pennsylvania is a "Last Hurrah" for a great and beloved Democrat.'
After that Obama wins in NC and Indiana and the race is over.
April 9, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's still close to two weeks away. It's up in the air.
April 9, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lots of spin here trying to explain why HRC is increasingly losing the PA vote...
First:
It is important to realize that HRC's base decreases with each passing day... when your base is old women, they automatically decrease with each passing day... they die...
Second:
HRC is increasingly looking like the loser... folks do not like identifying with losers....
Third:
Most folks a aware of trends and the trends are not going in HRC's favor...
Fourth:
Obama has focused on a base of young voters who will give the Democratic Party the majority for to the next generation. HRC's base will all be dead in 4 - 8 years.
April 9, 2008 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dare I point out this is in bad taste?
Grover Norquist said the New Deal would be dismantled because all its supporters were dying off... we didn't like that too much, did we?
April 9, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The GE matchup says to me that Obama has a problem in the Rust Belt. Basically, racism in the voting booth is still alive and well among what the chattering classes call "losers", and what left-liberal activists call "people who have been completely screwed by outsourcing and various other things, and are looking for someone to blame."
Obama has to NAIL Hillary to the wall on all things NAFTA if he wants to do something about this. Lord knows there are enough ways of doing it, but he has to close the deal. I suspect that the shift in Pennsylvania, coming as it appears to in the more blue collar areas of the state, is evidence that the Obama campaign is at least going some way toward addressing this.
The other problem is national security. There are a substantial number of working class Democrats out there who don't like the idea of withdrawal, strange as it may seem. This is the same demographic that here supported Reagan and in the UK drove Labour to stand by Bush on Iraq -- and 25 years ago drove Michael Foot to support Margaret Thatcher 110 percent on the Falklands at a time that many more middle class Labour activists were dead set against any kind of military activity at all.
So Obama, if he is to carry the Ohio valley aka Pennsyltucky in the general election, has to make a compelling case to these people as to why Iraq has undermined our national security.
April 9, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh -- and one other thing. Pennsylvania probably has the oldest average age in the union. There is no question that a lot of old people think Obama is jumping the queue. And McCain is the perfect foil for this from the Republican Party; he's "done his dues", fought in combat, served on Capitol Hill for 26 years, and lost his marbles, and will get a substantial number of votes from people sticking with their own generation with the now-almost-certain matchup with Obama. And he's a master panderer, which gives him a leg up with low-information voters, a category also heavily concentrated in Pennsylvania.
April 9, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fifth oldest in the union (VT, ME, MT and WV are older). Third in percentage of households with a member 65 or over. Sixth highest ratio of women to men. I looked it up yesterday.
I grew up in Pennsylvania. I have no doubt that there are many people who will, for the first time in the GE, have to confront head on whether they want to vote their economic well-being (the future) or their prejudices (the past). This is true whether Clinton or Obama is the candidate.
I don't predict the outcome, but the choice will probably be clear enough.
April 9, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!
April 9, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink