I hate to be the voice of gloom, but I think Hillary wins TX, OH, and RI and goes on to win the nomination. The latest polls have shown a shift in her favor over the past few days. I think the negative ads are working for her.
Possible. I maintain hope though.
Someone (forgot the name) from Real Clear Politics was on the radio this morning pointing out that, with the exception of New Hampshire and California (and CA had some seriously flawed polling), Obama has consistantly outperformed his poll numbers. Whether its independents or cell-phone owners or Get Out The Vote operations or whatever, he seems to get underpolled before each race.
Tomorrow will be a nail-biter but I’m hoping for good things. According to RCP, Texas is the same as it has been: 1-3 leads for Obama with one goofy +6 Clinton from Public Policy Voting. Ohio is where he’s stalling out at around 6% behind.
I can’t see Clinton dropping out absent an apocalyptic win by Obama tomorrow, which is unlikely. Really, at this point, the same with Obama. So if Hillary takes Ohio and it looks as if she will, we’re going to the convention.
::sound of Chris Matthews orgasming::
Polling understimates Obama because it doesn’t account for how well organized his ground forces are.
Huh?
That’s because I goofed. The RCP site has little C’s next to some of the states. Rather than actually, y’know, looking to see what the C’s meant, I assumed they meant ‘caucus.’ They don’t. They mean ‘closed primary.’ :smack:
The really irritating thing is, I’d known that already, but managed to not remember that when writing that post.
Anyway, the same correction applies to Kentucky and South Dakota as well as Oregon.
Bob, are you related to Eyore?
TX by over 10% and OH by nearly 10%. HRC concedes by Friday on the outside. RI I don’t know.
The most recent Gallup tracker (polling 2/27 - 3/1) has Obama ahead among Dems nationally, 50-42. Fifth straight day of being up by 5% or more. And he’s ahead nationally by ~7% in the RCP average.
Unless tomorrow is a damned big win for Clinton, Obama will still have significant leads in (a) delegates, (b) votes received in primaries and caucuses, and (c) overall support among Dems.
That may not be the March 5 headline, but for all intents and purposes it’s the state of the race. And I think it’s the reality that superdelegates will respond to.
Obama’s campaign is very organized at the micro-level. They make sure potential Obama voters get to the polls and vote. That makes for better representation than the polls reflect.
Ground forces influences how good your supporter turn-out is. Getting your people to the polls is contigent on your ground game.
Got it, thanks guys.
I’m also hoping that younger voters using cell phones instead of landlines is a major factor, too.
For Bob look at the lastest headlines, Obama is within margin of error in Ohio and is ahead in TX. VT will be a sold double digit win for Obama and 22% of RI is undecided. Judging from his rally there this weekend, he may do well in the Ocean state. We were campaigning hardcore for him in RI.
I think tomorrow will be close on all fronts ,and I don’t see Clinton backing down that easily either. But the superdelegates are going to be leaning on someone to bow out and it won’t be Obama…epecially after WY and Mississippi
I also wonder (aside from th cell phone thing) if the sampling skews older when they’re looking for “likely voters” (i.e. people who say they’ve regularly voted in the past). I might be wrong, but I don’t think first time voters can get classified or sampled as “likely voters” because they have no past voting history. That may underepresent Obama’s support by omitting the large numbers of new voters and college kids that he’s got behind him.
I think if (as seems most likely) she loses Texas but wins Ohio narrowly, she will probably wait a few days to see if she can get any traction in the polls by trying to spin a “change of momentum” narrative. If the polls don’t change and if she still gets wiped out in WY on saturday and (if she holds on that long) MS next week, then I think the pressure will be enough to get her to quit.
I wouldn’t expect a prompt withdrawal unless she really gets thumped tomorrow. I think she’ll hang around at least long enough to see if the wind changes.
But check out these numbers.
Ohio Polls
Quinnipiac University poll
Clinton 49-45
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer poll
Clinton 47-43
Boston’s Suffolk University poll
Clinton 52-40
“The Ohio Poll” by the University of Cincinnati
Clinton 51-42
Come on Buckeyes! You have to make up for the 2004 vote.
Bob - please. Obama’s ship is as far from sunk as Hillary is to winning the General election. Mathematically, she’s not going to blow Obama out of the water - if she wins popular votes anywhere it might, might be in Ohio and Rhode Island. Maybe.
I hope you’re right. All Hillary needs is a hockey mask and my nightmare is complete.
Pollsters do accomodate for the fact that younger people can’t have voted before. They usually have a list of like seven questions, and give potential voters a score to decide whether the person is going to vote. The questions include knowing where to vote, following the election, having voted before, etc. I’ve done these polls more than once, but can’t remember all of the questions. So 18-22 year olds are automatically “no” on voting before, and the pollsters remedy that by either just giving them that question regardless or by weighing the other questions more.
Anyway, the problem isn’t so much that 18-22 year olds aren’t considered “likely voters,” but that the pollsters try to create a picture of the voting public from their sample, based on the demographics of the population overall and by whatever demographics they have about past patterns of voting in that state. The latter information is itself pretty faulty, because it’s based on exit polling, not census data, and because it’s always OLD data. But if you believe for whatever reason that 18-22 year olds will be, say, 7% of your voters, and you find that 5 of 7 young people are Obama supporters, you give him 5% and Clinton 2%… but when young voters actually end up being 10-12% of the voting population, their composite goes out the window. I’m just making these numbers up, of course, but it is how the pollsters try to create a picture of the whole and why it is so often flawed. I’m sure any attempts to correct for it would be even less scientific.
Look, let me bring you back down to earth. Just because Hillary is getting some press doesn’t mean all the good people in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont suddenly forget Obama and his message. He did fantastic in both debates, what did she do? She lost her shit in the first 5 minutes of the last Debate and in the debate before that made a half assed honorarium to Obama only to fuck it up not 12 hours later.
Who won the last 10 primaries in the United States and 1 from all those people voting off shores? Obama did. Who has been getting endorsement, after endorsement, after endorsement from legislators, and superdelegates? Obama has. Has Hillary had Obamas superdelegates jump from him to her? No, Obama has had superselegates jump from her to him.
When you see Obama smiling on Wednesday morning because he’s being interviewed by Good Morning America having just won the majority of March 4th primaries, you’ll see a sea change again.
Math is on our side as well. Do you think Obama is going to fuck up and loose all those delegates some how? Do you think Hillary is going to do something miraculous to suddenly have all the supers jump to her side? No.
I hope you’re right, Phlosphr, but until tomorrow’s votes are all counted I’ll be huddled with Bob over here in the corner, whimpering with dread.
Clinton’s “3 AM” ad seems to have had a slight negative effect on Clinton’s campaign.