Gallup: Hillary Now Leads By 1
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Hillary, Polls
Was it the debate? BitterGate? A little of both?
Ultimately, it looks like the debate was the kicker…
These results are based on interviewing conducted April 16-18, including two days of interviewing after the contentious Wednesday night debate in Philadelphia and the media focus that followed. Support for Hillary Clinton has been significantly higher in both of these post-debate nights of interviewing than in recent weeks.The two Democratic candidates are now engaged in intensive campaigning leading up to Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary and are under a continual and hot media spotlight, increasing the chances for change in the views of Democrats in the days ahead.
Here’s the takeaway…it’s next to impossible for the Obama camp to argue that she shouldn’t take this all the way, as painful as that may be for the Dems. If she’s leading in national polls, especially once like Gallup, she still has a big stake in this thing.
Now, do I think her attacks at the debate were hacky and misguided? Sure. If you push memes on a fellow Dem and then say explain that this is what the Republicans will be saying in the Fall, well, that argument doesn’t really play. In fact, it hacky…Especially the Ayers jab, which Obama rightly smacked her back on. But again, it’s not responsible for anybody to be saying this race is over as of yet.
UPDATE:
Rasmussen shows a similar tightening with Obama leading 45/43, down from 46/41 Friday, 48/41 Thursday and Wednesday and 50/41 on Tuesday.
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 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.
April 19th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
“Clinton drew a crowd of 400 supporters in PA a day after Barak Obama drew a crowd of over 30,000 at his rally”
Funny that Clinton is telling us not to throw our vote away on someone who is drawing crowds 10-50 times larger than herself.
The Clintons must really think we are stupid.
April 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
What we must face up to is Obama responds poorly any time he’s not scripted to the teeth. He has had enormous media-bias on his side, but he cannot/will not shed the Wright sermons, Ayers/Rezko/Khalid associations, seeming lack of patriotism from both Barack and his wife, etc. How are our military men and women supposed to salute him as Commander in Chief when he has drawn his spiritual lifeblood from a church that welcomes Anti-Zionist remarks from Hamas onto its Pastor’s Page and whose chief Pastor Jeremiah Wright — as recently as presiding at a funeral last week — described America’s DNA as white supremacist?? My children and I didn’t go to Harvard and Princeton. We didn’t have that privilege. But thanks to having parents who made the world a safer place during WWII, my sister and I, and all of our 35 cousins graduated from college — many of us with multiple degrees. Our lives were enriched by this extraordinary country and her people. Because of the grace of God, my own two children are on the verge of graduating from college. Together, we have to make this country work for everyone. We have to be filled with love and hope and commitment to each other. It is my fervant hope that Hillary Clinton will be our President. But if Senator Obama’s name is on the ticket, the other name must be Clinton, or I will have to vote for McCain. No matter what we thought the DNC could help us achieve over the next 8 years, the one thing we cannot do is to leave our country in the hands of people who openly bid the world to do her harm [as Reverand Wright did when he chortled that 9/11 was America's chickens coming home to roost.]. Preserve America for those who love her most.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
The national poll has almost no meaning in a primary season that is almost at its end. The race is a little tighter? Nonsense. HRC has to win each remaining race by a 2-1 margin so she can significantly close the pledged delegate gap. That will not happen. At best she can pick up a net 8-10 delegates, which will be wiped out the following week in NC.
I have seen no one make a plausible case for how Clinton closes the pledged delegate gap; plausible being the operative word.
Clinton remains in the race only because she has THAT last name. No other candidate would be in the race after losing 11 straight states. The money would have dried up and the campaign dead. Bill Clinton is calling in his markers as a party elder.
What Obama does – again and again – is to respond to the allegations and pivot back to the issues. Obama was indeed tired and off of his game during the PA debate, and Clinton was on point – yet, my gut feeling is that Obama won more votes last night than he lost, because a weary Obama was far more compelling and far more presidential than an invigorated, desperate, and affected Clinton.
Clinton is playing the villain well so far. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like an act during the PA debate.
The Pennsylvania primary is less than 100 hours away. Let Clinton bring everything she has to this – which is to say, let her throw all the mud she can. We’ll see in 3 days who the mud is sticking to – and if Obama survives these Rovian, Atwater-style attacks, he will be a significantly stronger candidate. If he can rise above them, then he will be a truly great candidate.
I say let Clinton play the villain. Do we have a choice? She is staying in this race. Obama has bet his candidacy on the fundamental decency and good sense of the American people. And he’s gotten this far. I have hope that he can make it a bit farther.
The real risk is not to the party, but the Clinton legacy. Win or lose they have tarnished that reputation among a good portion of the Democratic party by making these scurrilous attacks on Obama.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Slightly off-topic (because I couldn’t find a better recent thread to put this in):
If you believe in political omens (or at least find them interesting), here’s one that the media has mostly missed: In the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, one of the first-round matchups is between the two teams whose home arenas host the major party conventions this summer. The series ended last night, with the Colorado Avalanche (D-Pepsi Center) defeating the Minnesota Wild (R-Xcel Energy Center) 4 games to 2… unfortunately for me (because I’m a Wild fan), but maybe fortunately for whoever emerges victorious from the sordid mess the Dem campaign has become.