Since we began compiling our polling results in early March, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have very nearly reversed positions. Whereas Obama was initially attributed as having about a 60 percent chance to win the election to Clinton's 40 percent, Hillary has now charged ahead of the 60 percent threshold while Obama is idling in the low 50s.
In my debut feature at the Guardian, I present a series of objections that the Obama campaign might raise about these dynamics. Can the Clinton numbers be taken at face value? I think there is at least one reason why they probably cannot:
Please see the article for the other objections, which I think are significantly more debatable.1. Apples-to-oranges
Increasingly, while the Obama-McCain polls are measuring an actual election matchup, the Clinton-McCain polls are measuring a hypothetical one. The polls presume an instance in which Clinton spontaneously replaces Obama as the nominee - the "Obama is struck by lightning" scenario. But in order for Clinton to actually get from here to there, a lot of blood would be shed in the process. Her nomination (1) would require her to take her case to the convention in August, and (2) would be actuated by an overwhelming number of superdelegates siding with Clinton and contradicting Obama's advantages in pledged delegates, the current Obama-Clinton national polling and some or most versions of the popular vote count.Were this to occur, what fraction of Obama's supporters would feel as though the nomination had been stolen from him? And how many of them would turn out for Clinton in November? There is no way to know for certain. But at the very least, Clinton would need to tie down a lot Democratic votes that aren't usually in play, and would have only three months between the convention and the election to do so.
36 comments
There is a misformatted link (to Pollster.com) in section 4 of the article. As a result, most of that paragraph is not displayed.
In light of today's rumors that clinton will be stepping down tuesday night, and that both obama and clinton will be in NYC wednesday... (dream ticket??) where are the obama/clinton vs. mccain/? polls?
First the NY Post, now the Guardian. What are you going for next?
Exactly exactly! The Hillary supporters are already disaffected (at minimum) and that's being reflected in the Obama-McCain head-to-heads. The required slight to Obama supporters and the overall damage to the legitimacy of the Democratic nomination in the case of a long-shot Hillary hijacking is not being reflected in the Hillary-McCain head-to-heads.
Regarding your points in your column:
2. state by state polling from surveyusa indeed shows Obama does as well as or better than Hillary in cross-party and independent support in most states, although Obama cross-party support seems to be in a steady decline as more of his liberal voting record beliefs become public.
3. no comment
4. The polling also doesn't reflect the demographic breakdown of the actual voter turnout, and so far we've seen almost the entire black electorate willing to turn up at the polls to vote for Barack. Similarly, I'm not sure the polls are reflecting the considerable number of extremely conservative voters that would be spurred to turn up at the polls simply to vote against a Clinton ticket. I think we could see unprecedented Republican turnout in a McCain-Clinton matchup.
5. Obama clearly has a much broader base of financial support than either Clinton or McCain. And indeed, the fact that Hillary blew her own nomination that was all but a foregone conclusion, and that McCain alternately clawed his way back from running fourth last summer to capture the nomination, does not bode well for her success in a general election.
nice picture.
Congratulations! The Guardian is a great improvement on the Post. Are you on their paper version as well?
Dude Your website is the ultimate culmination of state polling to come up with an Electoral Predicition in the Fall... It is the Highest Level of Partisan Hackery to write an article claiming that the polls that Favor Clinton don't really count,,,, Boy U R a Hack,,, A Shill... and just Pathetic
I will be very interested in the next few weeks' worth of polling.
Very soon, Obama will go from being 1 of 2 Democratic candidates to being THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE, and the mythical Clinton-only Democrats (who in the vast majority aren't campaign activists) will very rapidly turn to being what they are: DEMOCRATIC VOTERS.
I think this dynamic will rapidly change a lot of current extrapolations.
Anonymous 14:14
What makes this site what we think is the best is that for the overwhelming majority of posts, we are respectful of others, even if we do not agree with them. When we disagree with someone, we back it up with something intelligent, not just hyperbole.
Troll 14:14
You can only be called a hack if you are wrong. Clearly, Nate has pwned everyone in his predictions this election, most notably, his Super Tuesday predictions, NC, and IN predictions.
It sucks that your candidate lost, but don't take it out on the messenger.
Also, he might point to this:
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2004/may/may25.html
Ta-da!
Aaron, I also like Nate's predictions - that is why I am happy to use them to make Clinton's electability argument (or in other words, Frankenstein's monster endorses Clinton).
I think Nate's argument understates a few important factors.
1. Obama's support is the base of the party that cannot be expected to go to McCain (they will at worst sit at home). Clinton's is among moderate, old, working class, Catholic, and Hispanic voters, who would be fairly comfy with McCain.
2. I have rarely heard anything BUT vitriol from Obama supporters describing Clinton. Do you really think the "usurping the throne" factor isn't already calculated in?
3. For Clinton to win the nomination she would have to win over super-delegates with a compelling "legitimacy" argument (as well as electability). Any such argument would have to outweigh the expected fallout of a Clinton insurgency. Anyway, by design, Clinton is only going to succeed in an insurgency if Obama is involved in 1. a sex scandal, 2. something criminal RE: Rezko or 3. overtly racist statements on youtube by either him or Michelle. 4. Assassination.
None of those are extremely likely to happen (I'd take 10-1 odds for).
5. There is a better way to argue "Obama will do better". Obama's poor poll performance is a result of Clinton defections. That should be obvious - I have seen a number of polls where Obama only runs 4 points better among women than men. Kerry ran 14-15 points better.
At some point, Clinton will endorse Obama. When that happens, a good proportion of those Clinton supporters will come home. Not all of them - but considering Obama is on average, tied with McCain right now, ameliorating that animosity would put Obama ahead.
The main problem with the Hillary vs McCain poll is that it exists in a vacuum where somehow Hillary is the nominee but doesn't have to "steal" it from Obama.
Main reason for disparity between relative positions of Obama vs McCain, and Hillary vs McCain:
1) Obama supporters figure he has won and are willing to be magnanimous in imagined scenarios with Hillary.
2) Hillary supporters, for the moment, are angry at Obama and haven't actually looked closely at McCain's policies.
I think Obama will get a sizable boost once Hillary "suspends" her campaign (hopefully Tuesday).
Obama's supporters definitely hate Clinton. However, they have moved mentally to GE and therefore hate McCain even more and say that they will vote against him come what may, even for Clinton. Clinton's people are not in GE mode.
I think an awful lot of the Hillary supporters aren't bluffing when they say they'll never vote for Barack. They may not vote for McCain, either, but they won't vote for Barack. They're just too disillusioned by the nomination process.
You weren't kidding when you said the other points were debatable. A few of them may even be arguments against Obama's electability.
2) If Obama's holding his lead with the help of independents, then it makes his lead that much more fragile. It would be better if he had been trailing among independents, but had a strong base. Bitter Democrats who don't want to vote for him won't change their minds based on any campaign soundbite or debate performance. Independents, however, can be swayed by campaign performances. In this case, swayed over to McCain.
3) While it's true that Obama has been pummelled more than Clinton this cycle, I think that's because the Republicans had already established their case against her before the primaries even started. Every Republican loyalist can rattle off the official reasons why they should hate Hillary. What's good about the numbers you provide is that if Obama has been hit this often this early, it's already being factored into the polls, so we shouldn't expect to see his poll numbers go down as they trot out new attack ads. But I doubt Clinton would be hurt much by attack ads if she was the nominee.
4) The reverse bradley effect will probably only come into play in weaker Republican states with a large black population like Virginia. It may not be enough to swing the election his way. Remember that blacks are a much larger subset of democratic voters than they are of the total population, especially in southern states. Young voters are indeed probably being under-represented based on their poor turnout in previous elections (they are not 'likely voters'). It is a question mark as to whether they will come out this time. Hopefully so.
5)"if Clinton had relinquished a 20-point lead against Obama, who's to say she'd hold a two-point advantage against McCain?, etc" You should know by now that what happens in the primaries has zero relation to what happens in the general. As to fundraising, the lingering question I have is: "has the long primary season started to tap out Democratic resources?" Clinton and Obama alone have raised about half a billion already, while the Republicans haven't really begun to tap their base (about 250 billion between the top 4 fundraisers). Of course, this isn't a Clinton vs Obama issue, but it's something that can hurt the democrats in the general. It will be interesting to see if campaign receipts pick up as the primaries come to a close.
I think it doesn't really matter to anyone if Obama supporters actually believe a majority of Clinton supporters will vote against Obama -- they will.
Many of us are Reagan Democrats. Many of us have voted for Republicans many times. Most of us are not liberals.
The first Democrat I ever voted for was Al Gore; I shocked the entire time, watching how Democrats eat their own. Now, after the treatment of far-more-electable Hillary Clinton by the DNC, I am very ready to get off this train before the trainwreck comes in November.
There are 17 million Clinton supporters and we are already doing the math. We know now that we only need just a few hundred thousand votes in a few precise swing states to keep BHO from winning the general election.
We know he will do great in the GE polls because of his over-whelming support from blacks. Bu