WSJ Poll: Obama Moves Past Wright, Hillary In Trouble
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, Polls
This is bad news for Hillary because what it may signal is many Dems are ready to just wrap this thing up.
The latest survey has the Democratic rivals in a dead heat, each with 45% support from registered Democratic voters. That is a slight improvement for Sen. Obama, though a statistically insignificant one, from the last Journal/NBC poll two weeks ago, which had Sen. Clinton leading among Democratic voters, 47% to 43%.While Sen. Clinton still leads among white Democrats, her edge shrank to eight points (49% to 41%) from 12 points in early March (51% to 39%). That seems to refute widespread speculation — and fears among Sen. Obama’s backers — that he would lose white support for his bid to be the nation’s first African-American president over the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. of Chicago.
Not only that, her negatives are going up too:
The negativity of the Obama-Clinton contest seems to be hurting Sen. Clinton more, the poll shows. A 52% majority of all voters says she doesn’t have the background or values they identify with. But 50% say Sen. Obama does share their values, and 57% agree that Sen. McCain does.Also, fewer voters hold positive views of Sen. Clinton than did so just two weeks ago in the Journal/NBC poll. Among all voters, 48% have negative feelings toward her and 37% positive, a decline from a net positive 45% to 43% rating in early March. While 51% of African-American voters have positive views, that is down 12 points from earlier this month, before the Wright controversy.
More ominous for Sen. Clinton is the net-negative rating she drew for the first time from women, one of the groups where she has drawn most support. In this latest poll, voters with negative views narrowly outstrip those with positive ones, 44% to 42%. That compares with her positive rating from 51% of women in the earlier March poll.
Both she and Sen. Obama showed five-point declines in positive ratings from white voters. But where she is viewed mostly negatively, by 51% to 34% of whites, Sen. Obama’s gets a net positive rating, by 42% to 37%. Among all voters, he maintained a significant positive-to-negative score of 49% to 32%—similar to Sen. McCain’s 45% to 25%.
Interesting to see he has a net 17% positive rating among all voters, but only a net 5% positive rating among Dems. Tells you how brutal and divisive this campaign has become.
The obvious caveat here is that it’s one poll. But when grouped with other polls, a trend emerges that suggests the Wright issue has been marginalized…at least for the primary season. No telling what’s going to happen in the general, and we all know we’re going to see those clips again.
Now Barack, about Michelle…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
He’s even 2 points ahead of McCain note its RV not LV, because Obama gets alot of support from people who aren’t considered Likely voters, I for one would probably not be considered a likely voter, but I will vote this year
March 26th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I agree that the Wright issue has been completely marginalized. He has dealt with it well. His only issue now, is that more Democrats want Clinton as the nominee.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Obama’s not back. Hillary will fail too.
Dude, I don’t know about you, but I’m for Gravel.
What’s better than a committed socialist running under a party that supports anarcho-capitalism?
March 27th, 2008 at 8:36 am
His Wright cancer has gone into remission. But as we speak, my 527 loving named, “Stop the Crazy America-Hating Muslim from Killing White Children” (SCAMKWC) is receiving thousands of dollars and have contracted with a production company to make a 5-7 minute video that…..well, I don’t want to give it away, but if the Swift Boaters were an uncomfortable rectal exam for Kerry, this is going to be a full blow prison gang rape with shanks included. Enjoy, because it ain’t going away.
March 27th, 2008 at 9:15 am
This “poll” is duplicitous as they admit they deliberately oversampled black voters. Since that group breaks 90-10 for one of the candidates the results are meaningless.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Duplicitous? Kind of a harsh word for a poll that’s weighted…like every other poll in existence.
But you’re most likely not going to accept my explanation so go here:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/185845.php
March 27th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
[...] all of you who thought yesterday’s WSJ poll was wrong, here are two more polls to support the [...]
March 28th, 2008 at 11:32 am
It certainly duplicitious when it is being used to say it gives a meaningful measure of the choice of Clinton v. Obama. That isn’t an opinion. That a fact of polling requiring statistical random sampling.
Now, there are legitimate reasons for oversampling, like wanting to have a large enough “n” for meaningful crosstabs (the rationale used here), but when you do that the only meaningful measures exist WITHIN each candidates support. Thus this particular poll can tell you something about what Obama supporters think. It is not a measure of election preference.
And yes, my local paper (The Pioneer Press) reported this as a straight ahead scientific poll, as did MSM outlets everywhere.
I teach this stuff for a living and I often see it misunderstood, but even if you KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR in the sample that information was not given, and could only be inferred by doing a little stats on the numbers. How is that normal, fair and above board?
March 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am
BTW the TalkingpointMemo piece is simply wrong, although he gives himself ample wiggle room by saying things like:
But I’m pretty sure that’s not what Todd is saying.
What I think he means is
In any case, I don’t know that. But from my experience I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.
Why doesn’t he know for suer?? Because they DIDN’T GIVE THE INFORMATION NEEDED TO BE SURE. Giving that info is pretty standard, so why isn’t it here?
All yoiu have to do is look at the numbers to see they didn’t re-weight the results to account for the oversample.
March 28th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I also love how he “confirms” he story by taking the word of someone at NBC, and not getting the actual sample information. (I forget why dont we let people be the judge in their own case?? Oh yeah….)
This isn’t some grand mystery. If you have the sample information you release it, pure and simple.