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Obama Has 10 Point Lead Over Clinton In Gallup Daily Tracking Poll

April 9th, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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A new Gallup Daily tracking poll shows Senator Barack Obama now has a 10 point lead over Senator Hillary Clinton in their spirited battle for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination — and that other polling trends aren’t good news for the Clinton campaign.

Other polls continue to show Obama holding and maintaining a lead. And while this has happened before (remember the polls heading into Ohio and California?) Obama is retaining his lead longer and there seems to be a general trend that shows Clinton unable to break out again. Gallup:

For the third consecutive day, Barack Obama holds a significant advantage over Hillary Clinton in national Democratic preferences for the Democratic presidential nomination, now 51% to 41%.

Today’s 10 percentage point spread, based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking from April 6-8, is only the second time since January that Obama has achieved a double-digit lead over Clinton, the first being his 10-point lead in interviewing conducted March 27-29.

Although Obama’s lead was much narrower at several points recently in the campaign, Clinton has not led Obama by any amount since March 18-20.

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Rasmussen’s poll fits the trending:

In the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, Obama now attracts 50% of the vote while Hillary Clinton earns 41%. That’s the fifth straight day that Obama has been at or above the 50% level of support and enjoyed a significant lead over Clinton (see recent daily results). Clinton continues to hold a modest lead in Pennsylvania while Obama holds a huge lead in North Carolina. Data from Rasmussen Markets now gives Obama an 86.0 % chance to win the Democratic nomination. Expectations for an Obama victory have grown steadily over the past month.

And then you look at Pollster.com and see more evidence of a trend (that could change on a dime):

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Political scientist Steven Taylor writes:

And while such polls must be taken with a grain of salt, if anything because the nominee is not chosen in a national contest, one has to admit that it is good news for Obama in terms of national (and, more importantly, Superdelegate) perceptions.

Also: while the Gallup poll is just one poll, the Pollster.com aggregation of all polls (through 4/3) shows a trend line that is likely giving the Clinton camp some heartburn.

What’s going on? Possible several things (some of which we have reported here before both in own analyses and from other sites). Let’s distill them:

(1) Campaign fatigue. Have some Democrats begun to decide that this has gone on long enough are some of them about to settle on a candidate?

(2) The long gap to the next primary has not helped Hillary Clinton. The press had a long time to focus on her Bosnia fiasco and now the Mark Penn resignation/demotion (take your pick) has provided additional bad publicity.

(3) The Obama Wright fiasco has peaked at least among many Democratic voters. But is the Clinton campaign working mightily to keep it alive? Perhaps. The latest eyebrow-raiser is an op-ed piece the close Clinton ally and fundraiser Lanny Davis wrote for the Wall Street Journal — a publication with notable Republican readership (and ownership) about how he remains troubled by the Wright nomination. He had earlier written one for the Huffington Post.

So — depending your bias — Davis has TWICE written about him being troubled by Obama’s baggage in high profile opinion venues because (a) he remains genuinely troubled and wrote the piece strictly out of conscience OR (b) he is a surrogate for the Clinton campaign trying to keep the issue alive to peel off more superdelegates (even though his latest piece also seems a pointed reminder to GOPers about how this is an issue they can’t pass up to use against Obama).

(4) Obama’s high-profile bus tour through Pennsylvania — free publicity — helped voters get to “know” Obama since it was good imagery. So what if he stank to high heaven at bowling? It seemingly humanized him as much as Bill Clinton playing the sax on the late Arsenio Hall show did when he ran for President.

But a disclaimer is in order.

Polls have been hideously wrong this political season. And the greatest boost to the Clinton campaign would be if the Obama campaign believed them and coasted. The realities are that the polls have often been wrong, the campaign has been brutal and is seemingly endless. Do these polls reflect a voter intention to perhaps put a “fin” to the campaign and settle on one of the two as the final batch of primaries approach?

More weblog reaction to the poll is HERE.



This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Democratic Party, Democracy, Approval Ratings, Newsweek Blogitics, Superdelegates, Primaries, Bill Clinton, Elections, Polls, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Republicans, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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