Rasmussen Reports shows a glaring problem with daily polls:
In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, it’s now Hillary Clinton 42% and Barack Obama 35%. (see recent daily numbers). Last night was the first night of interviews without John Edwards in the race. For last night’s data alone, Clinton and Obama were essentially even. Samples for individual nights are very small and results should be interpreted with caution.
These tracking polls do not include statistics just from yesterday. It's actually a moving average, weighting in polls from previous days. They do it for the small sample size because there would be a lot of static in the chart, which messes up all sorts of other polling statistics. However, the flipside of this practice is that it's a lagging indicator of momentum.
If you believe Obama is stronger today than yesterday, or even from the day of the South Carolina primary (depending on how many days are averaged in), then you will never get a real day-by-day picture. Even read with a huge grain of salt, who knows. But where does he get support? From rich whites and African Americans. There are plenty of African-Americans in the southern states and Missouri can elect statewide Democrats from two metro areas, so Obama could win there easily. The northeastern states, Minnesota and Illinois have plenty of rich Democrats, with Obama tied in Connecticut. Since primaries aren't all-or-nothing, Obama could lose New York and California and still win more delegates if he keeps it close in those two states while winning by large margins in Illinois and the south.
Next, we have Nebraska, Louisiana, Washington and the Virgin Islands. Obama could win Louisiana and USVI by the African-American vote alone. The other states have caucuses, which seem to favor Obama. He may be done if he barely hangs on through Super Duper Tuesday and loses two of these four.
The following day, Maine has a caucus. Next up are DC, Maryland and Virginia, with Obama a lock in Md. and D.C. and Virginia probably going to Hillary.
The death blow? If Hillary hasn't done him in between next Tuesday and the Beltway Brawl on Feb. 12, I think Barack can end this thing on February 19, when Wisconsin and Hawaii vote. Wisconsin Democrats love firebrands like Russ Feingold and Robert LaFolette and the Madison microbrew crowd likes the "hope thing." Obama was born in Hawaii. Check and mate.
On the other hand, the March 4 primaries are in Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island. If the delegate count is close, Hillary can snap up Ohio's lower lunchpail crowd and Texas's Hispanics and come out looking like a new woman with relatively few big states (I have Pa. and N.C. in mind) left to fight over. That scenario depends on Hillary staying alive at each stage and not faltering significantly during any one week. Right now, it's Obama's to lose.
That's a really nice tie.
Nes: it is, isn't it? And not the usual solid-nothing tie the candidates usually wear.
RJ: I can only hope (having already voted) that you're right.