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Poll: Obama Performs Better Than Hillary In Key Swing State

A new poll from the University of Wisconsin finds Barack Obama running stronger than Hillary Clinton for the general election in this battleground state:

Obama (D) 47%, McCain (R) 43%
McCain (R) 47%, Clinton (D) 41%

The Clinton campaign will often point to swing states where they have polled better than Obama, such as Pennsylvania. As this poll demonstrates, however, they both have their fair share of better states.


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This is the first time I've heard Wisconsin described as a key swing state.

You need to get out of your Aryan Nation Compound more, and keep up with the real world!.

After today Obama is through. The MSM won't like it, the race has been very lucrative for them but even they won't be able to keep Obama afloat. The Rev. Wright will make sure of that. Oh, the tales that he can tell. I can't wait to hear them. What is Josh going to do until November? I think he has forgotten how to be an investigative reporter and the NYT won't be hiring anyone for awhile.

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You haven't heard that only because Hillary Clinton didn't tell you it was. Of course it used to be a key swing state before she lost and then it wasn't.

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Gore and Kerry barely won it. I did intensive GOTV on behalf of DNC in Wisconsin, as did every other political group, in 2004. If you don't think it's a swing state you aren't very well informed about electoral politics.

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Really? In the last three elections it was decided, IIRC, by less that one per cent of the total vote.

No one has done more to protect Wisconsin from Snipers than Hillary Tuzla Clinton!

Wisconsin??!! That place is full of African Americans and Limousine Liberals, right?

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I don't care who is ahead in these polls, they don't matter.

General election polls don't meen a thing until after the conventions.

I said the same thing this morning when polls came out showing Hillary leading.

(CNN) – A new poll out Monday appears to bolster Hillary Clinton's argument that she is in a better position than rival Barack Obama to beat John McCain in a general election match up.

According to a newly-released poll from The Associated Press and Ipsos, Clinton would beat McCain by a wide 9-point margin, 50 percent to 41 percent. But when Obama faces McCain, the two are statistically tied — Obama holds a two point edge over McCain, within the poll's margin of error.

The Clinton campaign has long argued the New York senator has a better shot at beating McCain because of her demonstrated appeal with working class white voters — a demographic that is key to winning several swing states.

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Otto, this was posted this morning.

Yawn.

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TPM did a post on this earlier today, and it doesn not matter. General election polls don't meen a thing this far out.

And, at least arguably, the national general election polls don't matter even near the GE. As Al Gore will tell you, winning the popular vote in the presidential election, plus a couple of bucks, will get you a hot cup of coffee.

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Who cares? Obama went on Fox TeeVee, and didn't behave the way Greg, Markos and MoveOn thought that he should.

That's what is really important. And Jeremiah Wright, of course.

Here's the rub. PA is not a swing state. Either Democrat will win in November. OH and FL are swing states where Clinton runs more favorably than Obama. WI, MN, CO, IA, VA, NC, NV, NH, NM are all swing states where Obama runs better than Clinton in recent polls. Additionally, other polls have shown Obama running competitively in crazy states like MT, AK, NE, and IN (I don't think he'd win these states, but it's weird to think about). To Clinton's credit, she puts WV and AR in play, whereas Obama would get crushed in those states.

Yup. Hillary is trapped by the conventional electoral math. Obama has additional ways to win even if FL and OH go Republican. Hillary has no such options.

If there was ever a day when we needed a 10 or 15 yr old quote from Bill Clinton to smear his wife with, it would be today!

Or we could talk about Hillary Clinton's plans to raze the Middle East with atomic fire.

If Wisconsin is a swing state all of the sudden then the Democratic Party is in serious trouble.

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From April 17, Boston Globe:

At last for Democrats comes a poll that offers more hope for their White House prospects.

The Gallup Poll looked at a dozen so-called purple states -- swing states crucial in November -- and reported today that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lead Republican John McCain 47 percent to 43 percent.

The dozen states were where the margin of victory in 2004 for President Bush or Senator John F. Kerry was 5 percentage points or less: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The Gallup Poll interviewed about 4,000 voters in those states from April 1 to 15. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Nationwide, the poll found that the Democrats are virtually tied with McCain; Obama has a 46 percent to 44 percent edge, while Clinton has a 46 percent to 45 percent edge.

Emphasis mine.

United States presidential election in Wisconsin, 2004

As a swing state, Wisconsin voted very narrowly in favor of Senator John F. Kerry over President George W. Bush in 2004. The results were nearly identical to the 2000 election, when Al Gore squeaked by Bush.

Yeah, Wisconsin really shouldn't be a swing state, which makes Hillary's numbers there all the more frightening.

Wisconsin keeps returning Russ Feingold to the US Senate. Of course such a rational voting population is not going to support an habitual lying War Monger such as McHillaryCain.

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Bill Clinton had a lot to do with turning Wisconsin and Minnesota into swing states. When I was a kid, Minnesota was staunchly liberal. Now we've got NRA idiots walking around in grocery stores wearing sidearms and Norm Coleman and Michelle Bachmann. Ol' Bubba's antics didn't go down too well the Scandahoovians in this part of the country. It wasn't the blow job so much as the perjury. Add high taxes and rising crime into the equation, and you're looking at fertile ground for Republicans.

Kerry won WI by 0.38%, MI by 3.42% and MN by 3.48%. Gore won WI by 0.22%, MI by 5.13% and MN by 2.4%. None of these are reliably blue states. Interestingly enough, for all the talk about OH, WI+MN=20 electoral votes, exactly the same as OH. While the evidence suggests that Clinton runs better than Obama in OH, it also suggests that he runs better than her in WI & MN.

Q: What exactly have we gained if she flips OH but fails to hold onto WI and MN?

A: Nothing at all.

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Apart from MN, they are even less reliably D if the African American voters do not come out in full force.

Stop Making Sense!

I agree. And with Hillary Clinton as the nominee, Wisconsin becomes a swing state. Ditto for Oregon.

Toss-up Polls Memo.

Ugh

Ditto -- no mention of margin of error.

PA is not a swing state.

I agree 100% that these polls don't matter. But the reporting about them can matter. And if TPM doesn't get it right, I don't hold out hope for many others. You guys should NEVER say someone is leading when the numbers are within the margin of error. And I say this as an Obama supporter who is would like to see as many positive headlines and reports as possible in the next 8 days. But the they have to be earned and accurate. This one flunks the latter criteria.

Obama is +4 while Clinton is -6. That's a 10 pt difference, which is outside the margin of error.

I don't have the background of the gurus at Pollster.com, but I know you can't add Obama's +4 to HRC's -6 and say the result is outside the margin of error. I am pretty sure that flunks Stats 101. You have to look at each set of numbers separately, consider what the range is with the margin of error included, and then look at how the ranges compare. Look, I am not trying to knock down numbers because they tend to suggest positive things for Obama -- far from it. His campaign has much to be proud of compared to HRC's. I firmly believe that if Dem's always approach the numbers with integrity, in the end, we will benefit disproportionately. Apart from that, if TPM is to be a fundamentally reliable source for numbers, it has to do better than this.

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But this is a University of Wisconsin Survey Center's Badger Poll. Go Badgers!

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Mark Penn says "Wisconsin doesn't matter"

Where's gotalife?

I thought Hillary was winning!

Gotalife is busy designing Hillary's Inaugural Pantsuit, covered with anti sniper Kevlar sequins.

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"But, but, but... Rev. Wright, Rezko... Ayres... elitist... kitchen sink... I could'a been a contender!!" - H-Bomb Clinton

"As this poll demonstrates, however, they both have their fair share of better states."

-----------

An odd conclusion to make when the poll is only for Wisconsin, one state, and not for a "fair share" of states.

What he's saying is that this poll confirms the conventional wisdom that each candidate has their own strong states. Obama does better in the Upper Midwest and Western states, Clinton does better in the rust belt and Florida.

Hillary is winning. You just haven't admitted to yourself yet.

Sorry, winning what? She's still behind in the Rasmussen poll, the Gallup poll, and the Newsweek poll. She's behind in delegates and the popular vote. If you'd like to suggest that Hillary is gaining momentum, then fair enough. But to suggest that she is "winning" is just inaccurate and, frankly, a bit laughable.

Oh, and as of today, Obama is winning in endorsements from fellow Senators, for whatever that's worth.

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Ok, so the "If Wisconsin is a swing state then Dems are in trouble" concern troll theme gets squashed by the weight of reality.

Next? Statements unadorned by any evidence or reality.

Anyone can do it. Hillary is winning. Hell froze over. Pigs can fly. Bill Clinton will not say anything stupid any more. I like this line of reasoning.


Wisconsin's been a swing state for some time (it is, remember, the state of Joe McCarthy and Bob LaFollette. And it's totally a Rust Belt state -- as are Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The Rust Belt, with exception to Ohio, will tend to go Democratic, but both have their liabilities in different Rust Belt states. Obama does poorly in Appalachia, probably largely because of race. Clinton would do badly in Wisconsin, probably largely because, unlike Ohio, Wisconsin remembers that she was for NAFTA before she was against it.

as a born 'n' bred Wisconsinite, I have to disagree with the rust belt label. WI is more like IA and MN. It didn't suffer from the Rust Belt job losses nearly as much as the other states you mention, mostly because industry was a bit more diversified. Large chunks of WI are still agricultural, with low population compared even to say, rural PA.

Speaking today at the National Press Club in Washington, after joking about becoming Obama's running mate and calling Louis Farrakhan "one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st Century" Jeremiah Wright said, "I'm not going to put down Louis Farrakhan any more than Mandela would put down Fidel Castro. You remember that Ted Koppel show where Ted wanted Mandela to put down Castro because Castro is our enemy? And he said, "You don't tell me who my enemies are. You don't tell me who my friends are. Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn't make me this color.'"

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I have just one thing to say : No soap radio.

Straight up Ali:

"No Vietcong ever called me n---"

Great callback by Wright there, going to Mandela. Applies nicely. Good catch Otto. See everyone, even Otto's getting wooed by Wright's intellectual descriptives.

Fox News puts the quotation marks differently, making the first two sentences Wright quoting Mandela, and the rest Wright's own words:

“You don’t tell me who my enemies are. You don’t tell me who my friends are.”

Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn’t make me this color.

Otto: Seriously, let the Wright stuff go.

It's making you a little crazy...

Brent Scowcroft Echoes Obama: We Need To Talk To Enemies

"Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, said on Monday that he agrees with the position, stated mainly by Sen. Barack Obama, that the U.S. would benefit from having direct talks with the leaders of its most distrusted adversaries"


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/28/brent-scowcroft-echoes-ob_n_99026.html

What a train wreck for Obama.

Welcome to the Hillary Clinton campaign ya'll.

She wins the general easily if we unite like the gop.

Lets win this time.

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I think you've mixed the words "win" and "lie" up again.

Wisconsin, my home state, is very farm country and white. Other than Milwaukee this state has only rural communities. We voted for Obama because of Madison, Milwaukee, the UW system and it is a very educated state. Look at SAT, ACT scores and you will be surprised by the upper midwest scores. We are straight shooters, don't like slime and can listen to intelligent conversation. We mow and shovel our own yards, clean our own house and have little room for class wars. I say this as a Madisonian that moved here from the yuppie Dallas area. It is a breath of fresh air and we barely voted for Kerry last year. We can go either way but as of now we want an bright, intelligent President. We ain't Black or elitist and we vote for Obama. How are the pundits going to spin that one?

I imagine the Clinton camp will spin it by saying you're a boutique state and that you drive green and gold limousines to weekly latte-sipping parties in the Lambeau Field parking lot while real Americans like Hillary are downing grain alcohol and playing the knife game at Scud's Bar in Lunchpail Fetish, Pennsylvania.

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Everything you're saying about WI is just as true of MN and IA. I would add that each state also has relatively low numbers of regular military but very high numbers of National Guard. It's a bit like northern New England in that respect. We want to defend our own territory. We don't seek out war. We're a bit isolationist. We particularly hate this Iraq War. Hillary wins no points on "obliterating" other nations out here.

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — If the Rev. Jeremiah Wright thought he was unfairly caught in sound-bite purgatory before, his appearance Monday at the National Press Club gave doubters and critics plenty to chew on in the coming days.

And in the process, he put his one-time congregant, Sen. Barack Obama, further on the political defensive.

~~~~

n a defiant, unrepentant appearance, the former pastor of the United Church of Christ congregation in Chicago that Obama has attended for two decades said he believed controversy surrounding his remarks on everything from U.S. government involvement in perpetuating AIDS in the black community to the "chickens coming home to roost" on Sept. 11, 2001, were attacks on the black church, not him.

~~~~~~~

Wright, for example, did not back down, for instance, from assertions that the United States government was responsible for introducing AIDS into the black community.

"Is he (Wright) working for the Hillary campaign?" asked conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, who blogged from the Press Club event. "Is he angry at Barack Obama? Because he has got to know this is killing his spiritual protigi's campaign."

~~~

Obama's message of racial reconciliation has helped him broaden his appeal, especially among younger voters. But Wright's fiery denunciation of slavery and apartheid, his contention that the United States had yet to apologize for slavery, and his historical references to white churchgoers who worshiped in the morning and then donned Klan hoods at night, are far afield from Obama's gentler appeal to working class whites, a group that any Democratic nominee will need to win the White House in November.

~~~~~

It is the political, not the religious, aspects of the speech that will add to Obama's troubles. The candidate, who was married by Wright and had both daughters baptized by the now retired minister, told Fox News on Sunday that questions about his relationship with Wright were "legitimate."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-28-wright-analysis_N.htm?csp=15

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No soap radio.

Look under the hood in these polls and you'll find much the same thing whether it's WI, IA, CO, MT, OR or any of a number of states. Hillary Clinton's famous negatives are sky-high in those states, reaching as high as 55%. It's really hard to win an election when more than half of the people don't like you. Her supporters like to claim that she lost in those states only because they're caucuses, and therefore undemocratic. The real reason she lost those states is because people there can't stand her.

North Carolina Governor endorses Hillary Clinton.

She wins the general easily if we unite like the gop.

Lets win this time.

Yes, the Republicans really have no way to counter a Democrat who was "for the war before they were against it."

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Unfortunately for you and Hillary, no presidential candidate who lost the nomination has ever gone on to win the general election.

wimomma -- it's not just Milwaukee but also Kenosha, Racine, Beloit and, I suppose, to a lesser extent, Green Bay and some other places. Basically all the big population centers of the state were, until fairly recently, industrial. Those parts of the state are probably pretty distinct from the agrarian ones, apart from sharing both the socialist and conservative streaks of their largely German and Scandinavian forebears. For them, NAFTA and trade are still major issues.

There's also a strong taste, spanning both the urban and rural parts of the state, for "authentic" mavericky-style pols, as evidenced by Feingold's remarkable Republican vote-winning. Alas, this favors fauxverick McCain in a matchup with Hillary "NAFTA" Clinton, and not only among the substantial population of black helicopter tracking, Sensenbrenner-electing dittoheads descended from McCarthy and the Posse Comiatus.

Eric's a little Badger (sigh)

septictank,
Good points. But why are we so different from the MI and OH. Less industrial perhaps but clearly corn, cheese, soybean and beer manufacturing. We are perhaps more rural and less culturally complicated but yet we vote more progressively in governor, senator and presidential elections. The German, Scandinavian influence of taking care of your own would be the primary difference I can see, yet we elect a very conservative state legislation. It is an interesting state and one that I find politically fascinating.

Come on.

No one has done more for Milwaukee than Barack Obama.

Let's hear it for Wisconsin! When are Kohl and Feingold going to endorse Obama?

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I thought Feingold had already said he's casting his super vote for Obama.

He did say he voted for him in the primary, at least.

Rasmussen Reports has the latest Hillary unfavorable rating at 53% - she cannot win a general election with this number. This flies in the face of any notion of electability.

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Everyone notice the difference between the size of this headline and the one about the outlier poll from this morning that showed HRC ahead of McCain?

Here's the rub. PA is not a swing state. Either Democrat will win in November. OH and FL are swing states where Clinton runs more favorably than Obama. WI, MN, CO, IA, VA, NC, NV, NH, NM are all swing states where Obama runs better than Clinton in recent polls. Additionally, other polls have shown Obama running competitively in crazy states like MT, AK, NE, and IN (I don't think he'd win these states, but it's weird to think about). To Clinton's credit, she puts WV and AR in play, whereas Obama would get crushed in those states.

Excellent analysis! Worth a repeat.

I was raised in Wisconsin and now live in Minnesota. Both states are very diverse in their politics.

I'm pretty biased in my perceptions but I can say that there is a lot of diversity in politics in both. Democrats and Republicans have much sway.

Overall though it seems like people are frustrated with the war(s), the economy, Bush, and the media. I would also add that Obama was everywhere in Minnesota on caucus night. Excellent grassroots campaign.

Traditional Republicans abound, a few neo-cons,
lots of Rush and O'Reilly fans. I think McCain will have a lot of sway.


Most of my friends, Wisconsin and Minnesota, are Obama people. A few possible McCain voters. There are few, okay one, outspoken Hillary supporter. And the rest, just a few, who just want to vote Democrat, as an anti-Bush vote essentially, and don't care who the nominee is. Yes, they are my less involved friends. However, it's also important to add that they also think this whole campaign season has been inanity.

I think it's important to keep those less involved Democratic voters perspectives in mind, as well. They think all of this bickering is silly and makes the candidates, both of them, look like idiots.

I agree with them.

analysis at the top by billysumday. sorry!

It is too bad that Obama cannot "package" the kind of support he has in WI and transfer it to some of the other midwestern states like OH and IN. He had pretty significant support in my area of NE WI. As an annectdote, in the WI primary, my 20-something neighbor who works a second shift job at a local manufacturing company could not wait to tell me he voted for Obama. I confess I was pleasantly surprised. One other story that may bode well for the fall...I have it on pretty good authority that Obama won Ripon, WI, birthplace of the Republican Party, in the WI primary.

I think part of the WI effect is due to the close proximity of the southern part of the state to IL, Obama's home turf. We got news of Obama both in WI and in Iowa before he was even running for president. He would likely be in much better shape if he had as many "home" states as Senator Clinton seems to have laid claim to these days.

wimomma, damned if I'll ever understand Ohio, even after living there awhile. A lot of those rural white parts in southern Ohio are pretty much Klan country. What was it Atwater (I think) said about Pennsylvania? Pittsburgh and Philly with Alabama in between? That goes for Ohio as well -- only Cincinnati and Columbus are Alabama too.

The commonality in those two states is Appalachia. I won't pretend to know much about that region. I do know that it's dotted with integrated enclaves going back to slavery days, and that whites in parts aligned themselves with escaped slaves during the Civil War. But everything I read tells me there's a virulent strain of racial fear and animosity that runs through the Scots-Irish of Appalachia, and I suspect that played some role in padding Clinton's margins there.

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Thank you Eric for adding a little balance to TPM coverage of polling.

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