Gallup Poll Official: Clinton Gains And Bad Year For Bloomberg

Democratic Senator New York Hillary Clinton has pulled way ahead of Barack Obama in national polling in the 2008 Democratic nomination race amid a “dramatic shift” of black voters towards Obama — and Clinton likely won her surprise in New Hampshire by her organization getting massive numbers of “old line” Democrats out to vote on voting day, Gallup Polls’ editor-in-chief said in a bloggers conference call today.

Meanwhile, Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport said in the telephone interview, polling shows the national atmosphere now is less hospitable for a third party run by someone such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg than it was for Ross Perot in 1992.

And on the subject of “change?” According to Newport, new polling shows people don’t want a systemic change in Washington but by “change” mean “solve our problems. Fix the Iraq war. Fix health care. Fix immigration.”

His key points:

(1) There was a massive actual turnout in New Hampshire with 70,000 additional voters going to the polls and Clinton apparently won the ground war. Gallup’s polling, which did not go all the way up to election eve, showed Obama’s voters fired up. Obama was ahead among likely voters. But more voters showed up at the polls, and it is believed that the Clinton camp got old-line Democrats who might not have been as fired-up about Clinton — but they got them to the polls.

Gallup is now re-interviewing all of the people interviewed to find out who they actually voted for and why.

Newport believes “real world events” such as the Saturday before the vote debate in which Clinton was pounced on by Obama and former Senator John Edwards and gave a tough response to questions, plus her famous crying video, likely played a key role.

(2) Present polling suggests this isn’t the best year for Bloomberg to run, since it shows voters are generally pleased with the menu of candidates from both parties. “It is not propitious for Bloomberg, really, as much as it was for Perot in 1992, he said.”

(3) Interest in this election is MUCH higher than normal. “There is a very strong level of interest. Eight percent of Americans could say without printing — no hints — that they knew Obama had won the Iowa primary. That is an extraordinary high level of knowledge,” he said.

(4) There has been a “dramatic shift” in black voters away from Clinton to Obama.

(5) In the New Hampshire polling, he said, Gallup didn’t poll up until election eve. Gallup may have to poll up to primary eve in the future because New Hampshire showed that. if there is a high turnout, it could greatly impact polls that were completed a day or a few days before.

(6) Voters ARE influenced by the results of the state primaries and caucuses. “If candidate wins, some of them will say ‘Oh, then maybe I’ll change my allegiance.”

(7) Gallup polling right now shows about a 14 percent advantage nationally for Clinton over Obama — a sudden change. After Iowa, Obama had surged in the polls — but trending has suddenly shifted again Clinton’s way.

TMV Editor’s Note: Part of this post had been up earlier, unfinished and not totally corrected and then there was a major technical glitch on TMV which could be seen in a massive design problem. Due to that glitch, this post was up on the site uncorrected for nearly 30 minutes. We regret the inconvenience to readers.