Gallup Tracking Poll: Obama Regaining Support After Wright Race Speech

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign has gotten some good news — one of several bits of good news in recent days: a new Gallup tracking poll shows him on the rebound after the firestorm over his pastor’s comments and Obama’s heavily covered speech on race:

Barack Obama has quickly made up the deficit he faced with Hillary Clinton earlier this week, with the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update on Democratic presidential nomination preferences showing 48% of Democratic voters favoring Obama and 45% Clinton.

Obama’s campaign clearly suffered in recent days from negative press, mostly centering around his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Perhaps as a result, Clinton moved into the lead in Gallup’s Wednesday release, covering March 16-18 polling. But Obama has now edged back ahead of Clinton due to a strong showing for him in Friday night’s polling, perhaps in response to the endorsement he received from well-respected New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former rival for the nomination.

The poll news could not come at a worse time for Clinton. Obama was on the defensive. But in recent days the media has begun to ask if it’s now the beginning of the end for the Clinton campaign. You also have to wonder how Superdelegates will feel about one little political tidbit: the reportedly actively and recently sought Richardson’s support, but once Obama got it a campaign spokesman said it didn’t matter. Richardson fired right back saying it was “typical of some of his advisers that kind of turned me off.”

Meanwhile, despite the thumbs down from some talk radio and cable show hosts, a CBS poll indicates that Obama’s race speech general got good reviews. He did pay a price, though: fewer people now think he has the capacity to unite the country.

Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama’s speech say he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations, and 63 percent of voters following the events say they agree with Obama’s views on race relations. Seventy-one percent say he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright.

When registered voters were asked if Obama would unite the country, however, 52 percent said yes – down from 67 percent last month

What remains for the Clinton camp? Although The Politico recently ran a piece saying Clinton has no chance and coverage is essentially now a media game, Clinton’s chances still seem a bit short of what the must-read website called “a myth.” Even though the numbers are against her, if there is some huge revelation about Obama, his support could collapse and the Superdelegates might step in at the convention.

But it’s now the longest of long shots, particularly since the Richardson endorsement, which longtime Clinton friend and strategist James Carville likened to Judas betraying Jesus.

The likelihood is that the campaign is going to get much rougher in coming weeks, as Clinton seeks to win Pennsylvania by a whopping landslide and overtake Obama in North Carolina. Obama, in turn, will work to narrow her margin in Pennsylvania and pull out all stops to win North Carolina.

A big problem for Clinton: right now Obama has a decided edge in campaign funds. Which means when he wants to pull out all stops he has the big bucks to do it.

SOME OTHER WEBLOG REACTION:

–Andrew Sullivan:

If Kerry had taken on his swift-boating as forthrightly and as quickly and as honorably as Obama, he’d be president today.

–The Swamp:

It will be interesting to see what happens in the primary polls over the next few weeks, as the speech and (perhaps) the Wright controversy fade. We’ll also look to see whether Obama has suffered permanent damage with critical independent voters and with voters in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana, the next three states on the Democratic calendar.

–Steve Clemmons:

What is clear to me — but seems to be unclear to many Clinton supporters and Obama supporters is that the Democratic Party remains deeply, evenly divided. The strategy both sides seem to be using to reach the supporters of the other is to yell more loudly what they have already been saying.

–My DD’s Jonathan Singer:

In the three days since March 18, the day that Obama delivered his Philadelphia speech on the issue of race, Obama has moved from a 49 percent to 42 percent deficit to a 48 percent to 45 percent lead — a net shift of 10 points in just three days. While all of this could represent statistical noise — Obama held a similar 48 percent of 45 lead as recently as March 15, one week ago today — these numbers do seem to undercut the notion that Obama has become dead in the water as a result of Wright’s rhetoric being exposed. I’d still like to wait to see some other polling confirm the clear trend found by Gallup, but it just might be that Obama’s speech, as well as Bill Richardson’s timely endorsement yesterday, might have turned the back the tide for Obama just over four weeks out from balloting in Pennsylvania and just over six weeks out from voting in North Carolina and Indiana.

–TPM Election Central:

It would appear that Obama’s big speech on Tuesday, combined with the Bill Richardson endorsement, have gone a long way in fixing his poll numbers for now. But he still has yet to fully recover the six-point lead he had in Gallup a little over a week ago