February 29, 2008
The Pew Poll
I apologize for not posting this poll yesterday. Pew is a great poll because they’ve broken down the numbers in almost every sub group imaginable. It’s quite enlightening. Here’s the key part of the poll:
Daniel Larison has an excellent analysis of what these numbers mean:
A year ago, or even six months ago, I would never have thought that the more antiwar Democratic candidate would have a harder time shoring up the party base than one who voted for the war, but that is what the latest Pew survey shows happening with Obama. Not only do Democratic defections nearly double in a McCain v. Obama race, but Obama loses a fifth of white Democrats to McCain, and he runs seventeen points behind Clinton among <$30K earners, reflecting continuing weakness with downscale voters. He loses 17 points among the quarter of Democrats who want to stay in Iraq, despite the fact that his and Clinton’s positions on Iraq policy right now are virtually indistinguishable (apparently these people believe in Hillary’s insincerity enough to know that she won’t actually end the war), but he also loses five points compared to Clinton among those who want to bring our forces out of Iraq. He draws slightly less support from liberals and slightly more from conservatives than Clinton, which is rather baffling. Compared to Clinton, he also loses 14 points among Democratic women, which is a much larger figure of disgruntled women voters turning away from the Democrat and backing McCain than the three-point difference between Clinton and Obama among black Democratic voters. The story of the Clintons’ permanently alienating black voters sounds good, but on the whole it doesn’t seem to be true. Meanwhile, Obama’s nomination definitely appears to alienate a lot of Democratic women, who perhaps resent the “upstart” (as he called himself the other day) taking Hillary’s crown away from her.
Most remarkable of all is that Obama is weaker among Democrats in all age groups than Clinton. He is four points weaker, and McCain five points stronger, among Democratic voters aged 18-49 than in a Clinton v. McCain race. The losses are even greater among Democratic voters 50-64 and 65+. Democratic defections increase across income groups as well. Obama does much better in the younger age groups among independents, but if the Democratic numbers are any indication this seems to have less to do with age than with style. Probably the same thing that makes Obama attractive to independents (he doesn’t always sound like a regular Democrat) is what is undermining him with Democratic voters.
What happens when these independent voters find that Obama is offering little more than rehashed liberalism and the “post-partisan” fantasy is revealed as just that? Do they embrace the equally fabulous (i.e., made-up) media narrative about the “maverick” McCain, or do they look elsewhere (Nader!)? As both Obama and McCain need to reassure disaffected constituencies, as this survey shows they do, does this not portend a widening of the partisan and ideological gap in this campaign as the nominees are forced to tack in opposite directions?
And those “Obamacans” we keep hearing about? They do exist, making up 8% of Republicans (three points higher than Clinton), but they are hardly the stuff of historic realignment and they are outnumbered almost two-to-one by “McCainocrats.”
http://race42008.com/2008/02/29/the-pew-poll/trackback/
February 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Oh goody, another poll eight months out from the election. I am sure the GOP nominee, Rudy Giuliani, will be finding this most informational.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Yes but there is a point - what you don’t realize is that the media and the opinion makers have already decided that Obama will beat McCain - that the only thing that matters is who wins the Democratic nomination (look at intrade futures)….I think this is another piece of evidence that Obama is weaker than Clinton against McCain, and that McCain has to be slightly favored against Obama…..
February 29th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Wow — those are some stunning numbers. 33% of Clinton voters won’t vote for Obama, and most of them will switch to McCain. Or at least that’s what they say now — a lot of folks on the losing side in a primary always say such things, and they generally come around by November.
But these are unusually high percentages, and would represent a real problem if even a fraction of those people really mean it.
Assuming that these numbers are right, and that they comport with what internal polls have been showing, it might mean that superdelegates would be reluctant to cross over to Obama as long as Hillary has a chance. If I’m a superdelegate member of congress, I’m not going to be enthused about being on a ticket headed by a guy who’s alienating that many of my supporters.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
This is the interesting thing about the Clinton/Obama thing, and why I think Clinton ultimately may be a tougher opponent than Obama. Obama’s base is African Americans and latte liberals. Those are among the two most loyal Democratic constituencies today. Clinton will get those voters eventually, or they will at worst stay home. Clinton’s base, however, is among blue collar workers and Hispanics, who are increasingly indistinguishable from white ethnics. Their votes are much more up for grabs, as this poll shows.
In the end, I’m not certain that Obama’s popularity among independents will last through a ten month campaign, and his difficulty nailing down Hillary’s base provides a greater opening than Republicans would have with Hillary going for Obama’s base.
This is consistent with polls showing that Hillary often carries the Dem vote (except in states with high AA populations). Obama owes most of his wins to cross-over voting from indeps and Rs. In fact, even in WI it was close among Dems alone.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Lanny Davis was on O”reilly tonight and mentioned that Hillary would win OH and PA abd then the margin would be close enough that the FL and MI delegates would essenetially make it a tie, throwing it to the supers.
I think this is pretty much the plan. Get it close enough so that the FL and MI delegates have to be seated and hope the supers bail you out. It also gives another 4 months or so for Obama to fade, for news to come out, for the Rezko trial to break, for something to happen…
I found it noteworthy that he mentioned winning OH and PA and this combined with te 35M raised in February leads me to believe that as long as Hillary wins in OH and isn’t blown out in TX, even if she loses there narrowly, she stays in for the duration.
Which is great news for the GOP. The animosity between the 2 supporters will grow and it will only hope McCain. Regardless of hwo ends up being the nominee I think if the Dems go all the way through Juen with both ofthem still in it, McCain wins in November.
If Hillary somehow pulls it out, all McCan has to do is nominate JC Watts or Condi Rice and the election is his.
If Obama wins, these numbers above show that a number of Clinton’s white, female and older supporters can be peeled off(VP Thompson? Palin?)
In any event, watching the two of them slog it out for another 3 months would be a tremendou benefit for McCain.
Go Hillary!
February 29th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Jim. . . regarding #5, I think it’s kind of funny that you suggest McCain could choose Thompson to appeal to older supporters. Maybe Obama will choose Harold Ford Jr. to appeal to African Americans and Hillary can pick Maria Cantwell to appeal to women!
February 29th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
jim - your #5 is racist, ageist, and sexist. It’s also moronic.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Actually though, when you look to the bottom line - Obama beats McCain by 7, Hillary beats him by 5, then I guess that his better performance amongst indies and Republicans actually does overcome these within-Dem trends.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
jim,
Nominating any black VP in the attempts of siphoning off black voters is idiocy. It will fail miserably.
February 29th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Matthew,
I agree with you, but there is a small, unlikely possibility for Republicans to peel some away if Obama loses. And that could happen only if Obama wins more contests and more votes (which he’s going to do) but Hillary somehow pulls the nomination away with the Supers. A lot of African-Americans who had their chance to have a President for the first time will start asking why, and if race is thrown around as an answer, things could get ugly fast. The Clintons are already on thin ice with African-Americans, and if there’s a big dust-up at the convention a lot of them could stay home or vote Republican if given a reason to.
A comparable example would be if the Clintons did to blacks what Mike Huckabee did to the Mormons. Just for the analysis’s sake, assume Mike Huckabee and Obama got their nominations, and then Obama put Harry Reid as his VP pick. He probably would win Utah, the most Republican state in the country, and sweep up a lot of other western states.
Far fetched? Absolutely. But within the realm of possibility, and since this site has become nothing but far-fetched speculation anyway, we might as well talk about it. Also, the blacks supporting Democrats by 10-to-1 margins is just stupid. A lot of them are cultural conservatives — very religious, opposed to same-sex marriage or civil unions, and are in favor of things like school vouchers for private schools and other conservative proposals.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:17 am
It seems to all come down to Texas for the dems. Clinton’s lead in Ohio has been cut, but she will probably hold on. They will split Vermont and Rhode Island. Texas is very close and has already experience high early voting. Polls predict hispanics to be about 30% of the electorate, meaning if it is higher Clinton could pull out a win. I have no idea how the caucus fits in, but the assumption is Obama will do better there. One added factor is that Clinton has angered the Texas Dem Party by threatening to sue over the caucus. I suspect a lot of party officials are now pushing Obama behind the scenes. The outcome is therefore very much unpredictable.
Yet, there seems to be a real movement to end it on Tuesday. Ed Rendell said this week that Clinton has to win both Ohio and Texas. More importantly, two senate dems endorsed Obama this week, Dorgan and Rockefeller. As chairman of the senate intelligence committee Rockefeller is a big deal. There could be a fear that Clinton is becoming so desperate that there is no telling what she will do next.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:24 am
#10 Interesting analysis about Hillary and Harry Reid, but absolutely incorrect. Harry Reid stands for nothing that 99% of most mormons believe. We are pro-military, anti-abortion, extremely patriotic, self sufficient conservative people. Harry Reid will NOT be elected if he runs again for the Senate in NV and it will be mormons, republicans and conservative democrats who will put him out. Until he became Speaker of the House, Nevadans were a little uninformed how far to the left he had drifted from the conservatives. (Long story but in the early years if you were not a democrat in NV there was basically no one to vote for. So everyone was a democrat.) Absolutely zero mormons I know have any intentions of voting for Reid ever again. In fact in the last senate race if the republican party had helped ANYONE with some state support, Reid would have lost last term.
I realize that that was just an analysis.
Mitt Romney is a different story. Most people including LDS voted for Romney in Utah because he proved himself in the Olympics. They were looking at disaster and he saved not only the Olympics, but the state. This may not be that big of a deal for those of you who do not live in the west, but it was HUGE for those of us who do. In fact, MANY Utah democrats who are NOT LDS planned on voting for Romney in the general election as well.
If the winter Olympics had been in New York, and was falling apart it would have been HUGE for the east coast as well to have Romney turn around the Olympics and have one of the best and safest Olympics right after 9/11. In fact, John McCain tried to cancel the SLC Olympics.
Yes, one would assume Mormons are just sheep for their guy. But they are sheep for a guy who proved himself and happens to be LDS as topping on the cake.
March 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am
I’ve got a serious question.
If McCain died after the GOP convention and before the general election how would we determine the nominee?
I’m assuming the VP would become the nominee but who would make that decision?
The RNC?
March 1st, 2008 at 9:52 am
If Obama *does* win in the Fall it’s not going to be by seven points. Obama has nowhere to go but down as people are projecting their “hopes” for “change” onto him. Obama’s policy positions are far less known than McCain’s and once some sunlight shines onto them Obama will lose virtually all of his support from Republicans and R-leaning Independents.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:38 am
What this poll doesn’t take into account, however, is how Obama supporters will feel about Hillary if she wins the nomination through a combination of bribery (to superdelegates) and trickery (ie: seating the Michigan and/or Florida delegation), as she will have to do to secure the nod at this point, even if she wins Texas and Ohio. Think she’ll still hang on to 90% of the Democratic Party vote then?
March 1st, 2008 at 12:05 pm
14,
Exactly. For example, one state that Obama supporters point to is Colorado. Colorado is the same state that passed Amendment 2 against gay rights. You think they’re going to for Obama when they find out he’s on record for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and allowing open homosexuals in the military? When they find out he’s for repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and forcing Colorado to recognize gay marriages done in MA? When they find out he has an F rating from the NRA and proposed legislation banning gun sales and other anti-gun laws?
Please
The same goes for just about every other red state
March 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Obama needs superdelegates to get the nomination, too.
Neither of them will win outright.
If either win, it will only be because of the superdelegates.
What’s the point of even having superdelegates if the entire point of them is just to rubberstamp “the peoples’” choice..?
March 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Exactly. For example, one state that Obama supporters point to is Colorado. Colorado is the same state that passed Amendment 2 against gay rights. You think they’re going to for Obama when they find out he’s on record for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and allowing open homosexuals in the military? When they find out he’s for repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and forcing Colorado to recognize gay marriages done in MA? When they find out he has an F rating from the NRA and proposed legislation banning gun sales and other anti-gun laws?
Yeah. I can’t imagine his leads in the Southwest holding.
DOMA is blatantly unconstitutional, though, and will probably be overturned in the next few years.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Good find by LJ on the crosstabs on the poll…
However, I think that it’s important to note that the game-changing, nomination-altering, trajectory-reversing endorsement, might finally have materialized for HRC…
Who needs a million unique donors, when you can have The Joker and Colonel Jessup on the virtual cyberstump, endorsing your candidate? Their endorsements have finally emerged - take a look:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/01/jack-nicholson-films-ad-f_n_89356.html
Hat tip to Yahoo! News - who put this on their front page (literally, the first thing you see, on the home page, not the “Election ‘08″ page…
March 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
#17: True, but he doesn’t need to CARRY to superdelegates to win, at least not unless Hillary sweeps Ohio, Texas & Pennsylvania AND manages to get the Michegin and Florida delegation seated.
As far as the point of the superdelegates, supposedly its purpose was to prevent the party from nominating an extreme leftist in the mold of McGovern. How’s that working out for them anyway?