Via Chris Bowers of Open Left, polling is within the margin of error in many states, but California and New York are the "big ticket items," and what matters is the delegate count. What’s really funny is that the polls really haven’t been reliable in many ways (size of win in SC, NH, and of course Iowa), and the talking head pundits are even more hilariously off the mark.
I was IMing someone the other day that I could just as credibly sit my posterior in an on-air pundit chair and say pigs are flying over the Capitol and be as on-point as some of these professional bloviators.
Post-South Carolina, Super Tuesday Polls, Democrats
State Polls Clinton Obama Delegates Delegates 4 246 157.5 2,025 to win Alabama 3 46.3% 42.7% 52 Arizona 2 44.0% 40.0% 56 California 6 43.7% 39.5% 370 Connecticut 3 44.0% 41.0% 48 Delaware 1 44.0% 42.0% 15 Georgia 4 36.6% 50.0% 87 Illinois 3 29.7% 55.3% 153 Massachusetts 2 50.0% 35.0% 93 Minnesota 1 40.0% 33.0% 72 Missouri 5 45.6% 42.0% 72 New Jersey 6 47.2% 38.5% 107 New York 4 51.3% 35.8% 232 Oklahoma 2 42.5% 18.0% 38 Tennessee 4 46.8% 31.0% 68 Utah 1 29.0% 53.0% 23 National 5 47.0% 40.0% 0 So, we are talking about only a 100-125 delegate margin of error for Obama on Tuesday, which really isn't that much. If Clinton wins 850 delegates, the situation looks great for Obama. If Clinton wins 950 delegates, the situation is devastating for Obama. Right now, the polling numbers above crudely project to a 102-delegate advantage for Clinton on Super Tuesday, or about 895 to 793, which is almost precisely in the middle of the best case and worst case scenarios for Obama. Honestly, a few points in either direction could turn the campaign into a dead heat, or turn it into a solid Clinton advantage. With Gallup and Rasmussen pointing in opposite directions, it is difficult to determine what is happening. We will all find out in about 60 hours or so.
It's really unnerving that some states are shut completely out of the process because they follow Super Tuesday. As I've mentioned before, North Carolina doesn't hold its primaries until May 6. That doesn't exactly encourage voters to go to the polls when they presidential primaries are wrapped up.
15 Responses to “It’s a real horse race on Tuesday”
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Pam, the even more updated numbers (including polls after Edwards dropped out) are here; for instance, it shows a one-percent differential in the national numbers and an even smaller difference in the CA vote.
I’m starting to think Obama might actually be able to win CA and Super Tuesday overall (though early voting worries me), whereas until yesterday I was just hoping he could keep it close until the 2/9 primaries (VA, MD and DC– which he could sweep by 10-15 pt margins, in Md/DC and by 5-10 in VA).
Help-help-help! Please forgive the halfway-OT here — I’m in Mass, one of the SuperTuesday states, and am utterly hornswoggled. Since Edwards (my first choice by far; I suspect that’s not rare around here?) dropped out, I’m at a loss.
The people at Mass Dem HQ were, unsurprisingly, not massivley helpful. They *think* that Edwards may still be on the ballot here, and they *think* that the awarding of delegates is proportional, and not winner-take-all. If so, my inclination would be to vote for Edwards, in an attempt to give him as much bargaining power as possible in platform and personnel decisions. OTOH, if the vote really is close in this state, and others, p’raps I should be voting for Hillary or Obama, each of whom has both major selling points and major drawbacks for me. Very open to suggestion… thx
On the other hand, think what it would mean if the primary races stays this close and the whole thing turns on a few thousand voters in one of the late states (just as it was initially supposed by the media to turn on a few thousand voters in Iowa and New Hampshire).
Horse race? But all I can see are asses …
My current “plan” (I was one of those Edwards voters, and one of those Dodd voters, too) aims to vote to *narrow the race* and let voters in later primaries have votes that mean something. I’m in NJ, so I’m *very* familiar with how much sweeping up behind the parade sucks (our primaries are usually in June).
Is there any chance that Hillary will be knocked out by tomorrow’s vote? The polls show Obama closing in to margin-of-error in NJ, which is remarkable given that I’ve not seen one piece of mail or received one phone call from his campaign.
Basically, if tomorrow is make-or-break for Obama, I’ll vote for Obama. If it’s make-or-break for Hillary, I’ll vote for Hillary.
My mixed feelings, let me show you them!
Here’s my prediction for the Republicans: Romney is going to win California, or at least come damned close. The California Republican Party decided to have a closed primary, so only registered Republicans can vote in it tomorrow. And the nutty base out here really, really hates McCain.
Unless something huge happens between now and tomorrow, I think I’m voting Obama. Unless I change my mind. Again.
I think that tomorrow is absolutely make or break for Obama, although to what degree clearly depends on what state you’re voting in. California, for examples, seems like it will be key to Obama’s ability to stay in the race long enough for the late primary states to matter; if Clinton wins California resoundingly, it along could be enough to give her an insurmountable delegate lead.
Oh, my brain hurts.
I need to look up the chances that Oberweis will win the GOP nomination in the 14th House District of Illinois. Because if he’s anywhere near close, I think I’m going to pull a Republican ballot to vote against him.
And then get buried under Republican campaign crap for the next god-knows-how-many months.
This is fascinating - thank you for posting.
The thing not captured here is the momentum factor, which would seem to be all Obama’s. For instance, national and California polls have them statistically tied (with some Cali polls showing Obama up by statistically insignificant margins).
Pollster.com has some beautiful graphs showing the movement of the two candidates, nationally and in the states, which illustrate the momentum factor.
Oh, and the vote-by-mail people - they’re factored into the poll results.
Yikes. I’m about ready to write in Chris Dodd. I’ve never been so undecided, so late in a presidential primary. Random story: so my mother (very liberal Democrat) and stepfather (racist, hates everybody, former union organizer and lifelong Republican) both voted for Romney in the NH primary. (Sick, I know.) Yesterday they both said how disappointed they were that Edwards dropped out and that they wish they could have taken back their votes and given them to Edwards. My SF said if McCain won he would refuse to vote for him in the general, even if Hillary were his opponent - and he HATES Democrats. Apparently Edwards is okay, but McCain is too liberal.
I really don’t understand them.
In NH, some portion of voters ostensibly wanted to send the message, “No, we don’t want this race to be over yet!” and they bucked the (one-data-point) trend. Might we see the same thing following Tuesday? Imagine this scenario:
Clinton wins Tuesday, but only by a hundred or so delegates, and later-caucusing states, in a bid to make their votes MEAN SOMETHING, start leaning more Obama-ly? (or vice-versa if Obama wins Tuesday)
Oh how exciting that would be! It would sure make a great narrative…
My SF said if McCain won he would refuse to vote for him in the general, even if Hillary were his opponent - and he HATES Democrats. Apparently Edwards is okay, but McCain is too liberal.
I was eavesdropping on two women when we went out to dinner on Saturday and they both agreed that McCain is very liberal, but Romney is very conservative.
If McCain wins, and he tries to run as the conservative opponent to liberal Obama/Hillary, he’s not going to get far, at least with the Republicans I’ve heard from.
Mnemosyne
February 4, 2008 at 6:33 pm
“If McCain wins, and he tries to run as the conservative opponent to liberal Obama/Hillary, he’s not going to get far, at least with the Republicans I’ve heard from.”
He won’t need to run as a con at that point; that’s only necessary in the primary. Given his older history (and with the media conveniently helping voters forget the last 3 1/2 years of his cozying up to W, and his total sell-out to the very same Christianists whom he rightly decried as “agents of intolerance” in oughty-ought), he could easily get away with it, too.
The whole Republican coalition of war-hawks, anti-gov/anti-tax zealots, and haters of women/non-whites/GLBT/immigrants/non-Xtians, is deeply fracturing, having found no single champ around whom to coalesce. The real hard-core rightists on all three issues are far fewer in number, and in political strength, than Karl Rove’s manipulations made it appear in the last election(s).
And of course the W party has lost the trust of the low-information swing voters who were taken in only by the manipulation of various fears in ’04 (with the full connivance of the corporate media). That same cohort is now up for grabs, and it’s not at all clear whether Obama, Hillary, or McCain could make the most headway with them.
The irony of this must be absolutely killing Romney. Romney is currently presenting as a full-bore (every sense) conservative, and trying to live down his socially-liberal stances of convenience when he ran for Gov of Mass, and not getting full traction with the Retthug base. McCain, on the other hand, with a truly much more consistently conservative voting record as a Senator (marred, from the wingnut perspective, by his treason on campaign finance reform; his sellout on “amnesty” for “illegals;” and his votes against the W tax cuts as too slanted to the rich, and too damaging to the deficit), IS making some headway with the less-psychotic portions of that same base — at least enough to have won those primaries that allowed independents to vote.
This is what is truly scary about McCain: he could easily, seems to me, convince 51% of the voters (or more) in the general that he is that “straight-talking maverick” that is almost entirely a fictional creation of that same mass media that electorally assassinated Gore in 2000.
That’s got me thinking about taking a Rethug ballot tomorrow, to vote for Romney, in hopes of derailing McCain. (For now, I’m still equally attracted/repelled by Obama and Hillary.)
Here’s my attempt to read the tea leaves…
The polls have been notoriously inaccurate the entire primary season. Clinton outperformed the polls by 9 points in NH; Obama outperformed the polls by 17 in SC.
What is most interesting is how many undecideds are left. A 44-40 Clinton edge is not really a 4 point lead for Clinton. The poll is really 44-40-16 with 16% of voters still undecided.
It is these undecided voters who will decide the election. In IA and SC, the polls had Clinton’s numbers dead-on. Edwards were slightly high, and Obama’s were low. The “undecideds” in these races broke strongly for Obama. In NH, the polls slightly overestimated Obama and Edwards’s support, while the undecideds broke strongly for Clinton. In NV, Edwards was just below the threshold for viability, and undecideds and Edwards voters split evenly.
Clinton won both Florida and Michigan easily, but she didn’t pick up many undecided voters.
I suspect that something similar will happen tomorrow. This is a two horse race. She’s only polling above 50% in two states, one of which is NY. This race is far from settled.