New Strategic Vision Poll has Obama within 8 in PA

Another Pa Poll shows Obama closing the gap in Pa.  Last month Strategic Vision had Hillary up by 18 points.

Goddard Political Wire

Strategic Vision:

Obama Narrows the Gap in Pennsylvania
Political Wire got an advance look at a new Strategic Vision poll in Pennsylvania that shows Sen. Hillary Clinton leading Sen. Barack Obama by eight points, 49% to 41%. This is a dramatic change from last month's poll that found Clinton leading by 18 points.

In a general election match-up, Clinton leads McCain 47% to 41%; McCain leads Obama 47% to 42%.

The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3%.

Also for all who like to listen to their Bull sh*t unvarnished - here a link to an audio conference call with team Clinton.  In it Wolfson assures the press that it's not the Campaign's stance that Obama is unelectable.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpoi...

On a conference call with reporters this morning, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson was asked whether it's the Hillary campaign's official position that Obama can't win a general election against McCain, as Hillary is  reported to have privately argued to Bill Richardson.

Wolfson's answer:

"No."

•  Tips please

  Yeah for favorable polls

  by Kitty on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:44:14 PM PDT

•  How is strategic vision?

  Haven't heard much from them.  Like these trends though.

  by 1 20 2009 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:45:45 PM PDT

  •  GOP pollster

    But decent in quality -- much better than, say, Insider Advantage, Zogby, ARG.

    by Nathaniel Ament Stone on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:46:18 PM PDT

  •  I agree

    it's the trends that matter at this stage.  Obama is closing the gap.

    by Kitty on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:49:05 PM PDT

  •  Pretty bad

    Their polls always skew 2-4% for Republicans. As far as primary polling goes, I have no idea.

    by Chris Bowers on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:54:17 PM PDT

  •  Their MS poll had Obama by 17

    He won by 24, I think. So somewhat close.

    by jj32 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:05:14 PM PDT

•  They take these poll to often

  wait till both side have been decided.

  by B P Pgh on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:46:48 PM PDT

•  5 to 1 advertising campaign

  will really bring this thing close.

  I can only imagine the tense discussions at the Clinton camp meetings.

  by jalapeno on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:49:37 PM PDT

•  With 13 to 15% undecided, polls are only

  good for trends, but it's great to see Obama trending up in all of em.

  by hideinplainsight on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:49:53 PM PDT

•  I'm starting to get the audacious hope

  that he can close this deal in PA.

  A week ago, I would have said I'd be delighted with keeping her win to single digits.  Today I'd say "delighted" would need a margin of 5% or less.

  If this trend keeps up ...

  by jrooth on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:49:54 PM PDT

  •  I am trying not to get my hopes up

    But it's hard. I just hope the polls don't start showing him ahead. That will up the ante and I still don't think he can win PA. But if he can pull off a miracle and win by 1 vote, it's over. I'm going back up to Philly this weekend and will report when I get back.

    by democrattotheend on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:54:17 PM PDT

•  This diary is too derivative of Goddard

  Sorry ... film school joke. Didn't mean it ...

  Another poll to add to the evidence ... too many polls showing the same thing to disbelieve it: Obama is definitely closing the gap with some speed.

  by BriVT on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:50:30 PM PDT

  •  I remember when Woody the bartender

    said it to Diane, about her short film, on "Cheers."

    by jamfan on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:53:49 PM PDT

  •  Jeanne-Lucc Goddard or the other one? n/t

    by C S McCrum on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:58:22 PM PDT

•  Clinton will win PA by 10-12 points

  With between 2 and 2.5M votes cast.   She will pick up about 225K votes on obama, effectively halving his PV vote lead (when MI w/unaffiliated to Obama, FL, and caucus state estimates are included).

  With a deficit of only 225K votes remaining, the calls for her exit from the race will become muted, and this will play out until early June.  

  At that point, if she cannot lay claim to the popular vote by a reasonable measure, she will concede the race or the superdelegates will flock to Obama (or both).  If she can claim a popular vote victory, then she will press for the results from MI and FL to be acknowledged in some way, taking the fight to the convention if necessary.

  Under this scenario, a conflicted Al Gore will emerge as the peacemaker.   Still stung by the theft of his own PV victory, he will back Clinton for the nomination, with Obama taking the VP slot.    Okay, this last bit is pure fictional speculation.  I have absolutely no idea what will happen beyond PA, where I am confident that Clinton will win by 10-15 points.  The dynamic of the race has been remarkably steady since before Super Tuesday.  These demographics look a lot like Ohio, with the added edge to Clinton of being a closed primary (since registered Democrats have favored Clinton over Obama).   So take her 10 point win there, and bump it by a few points for the closed primary, and you have a 10-15 point win for her there.   The 10 points of undecided will break 70% for her as they did in Ohio and TX, which with this poll yields a 12 point win for her.

  More scary are the PA Obama vs. McCain numbers.  Recent polls have him underperforming Clinton in FL, OH, and PA.    He could win without these states, but makes it much tougher.  It will take a number of smaller states to offset PA and gain the bit more needed for a dem win.  

  by ActivatedbyBush on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 01:56:38 PM PDT

  •  Hmm, 2.5 million would be over 50% turnout

    I dont know if that has happened anywhere this primary season.

    by jj32 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:04:17 PM PDT

    •  Don't bother trying to reason with HRC kool

      aid spin talk.

      by True Independent on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:05:24 PM PDT

      •  True

        All of this is just trash talking on both sides.  Let's vote the votes, account for FL and MI in a fair way, and see where we are on June 4.  And then let's quickly get focused on the general election.

        by ActivatedbyBush on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:35:01 PM PDT

    •  Happened in plenty of places

      I think that is high end, but we will see over 2M votes cast, with clinton picking up between 200 and 250K popular votes.

      by ActivatedbyBush on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:05:29 PM PDT

      •  Which she'll lose...

        two weeks later in North Carolina.  And she'll only pick up around 10 delegates with a 10 point PA win.

        by rashomon on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:08:04 PM PDT

        •  This is my favorite part

          The last strategy Clinton was using was to have overwelming momentum going into PA.  But guess what, Barack delivered a historic speech.  Clinton's momentum has not only been decimated, Barack has been off to the races and North Carolina is going to push the wrong way for Clinton.

          by dan667 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 03:01:23 PM PDT

      •  Yeah lets ignore the minus 10 point

        trend in the polls taken over the past week.  I remember when an HRC supporter was seriously talking about her winning 85% of the vote in PA.  This is looking more and more like a single digit win.  Insorfar as counting the votes in the beauty contests are concerned why not add the votes in the TX caucus as well?  Those were real people casting real votes, and their votes unlike the ones in the beauty contests lead to the awarding of delegates?  

        by True Independent on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:08:41 PM PDT

        •  Because ya only get to have your vote counted

          once!   I don't know who was smoking the 85% dope.   This will follow same trend as OH.  The demos are pretty locked in.  There have been no real breakthroughs in the solidity of the two candidates' coalitions.

          by ActivatedbyBush on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:31:29 PM PDT

          •  Suppose Michigan had two contests one in Jan and

            one in March.  Half the delegates were awarded in Jan and the rest in March.  Do you only count the Jan vote totals and just disenfranchise those who bothered to show up in March?  That is the logic of your statement that "you only get to vote once."  Delegates were handed out in both contests so a Jan voters vote is no more superior than the person who voted in March.  If you want to be fair then say a person's primary vote is worth 2/3 of a whole vote because that is the portion of delegates that were at stake for that vote, and that the caucus vote counts for 1/3 of a whole vote.  If you do that Clinton's 102K primary pop vote total in TX is gone.  The result is anywhere from a +20K for Clinton to a +18K for Obama, either way Obama's overall pop vote lead just increased by a 100K, putting him over 900K (once you add in the five non-reporting caucus states like RCP has done).

            by True Independent on Fri Apr 04, 2008 at 12:00:18 AM PDT

      •  It looks like it happened in one place

        New Hampshire. Link Turnout has been good, but 50%(2 million voters in PA) or over, is probably unrealistic.

        by jj32 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:13:06 PM PDT

        •  Plus higher turnout almost always favors Obama

          by True Independent on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:13:49 PM PDT

  •  General Election numbers dont mean much

    this early. If they did, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry would have been president.

    by jj32 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:06:31 PM PDT

  •  You forget that a big chunk (more than half) of

    the undecideds in these PA polls are African-American.  That undecuts your 70% of undecideds will break for HRC argument.

    by True Independent on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:10:39 PM PDT

  •  Not much "underperformance"

    If you look here and here, you'll see that HRC is up 8 vs. McCain in PA and Obama is up 4, Hillary trails by 7 in Florida while Obama trails by 4, and Hillary is tied in Ohio while Obama trails by 6.

    So that works out to Hillary polling, on average, 2.33% better vs. McCain in those 3 states than Obama.  I don't find that particularly damning.

    Of course, if you look at total EV's right now on the links above, Obama fares better vs. McCain than Hillary thanks to doing better in many other states, but hey, that can't mean anything, because he's unelectable and can't win, while Hillary's unstoppable.

    by synchronicityii on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:15:49 PM PDT

    •  Guess it's easy to find polls that make one's

      point.  I was only commenting on the poll cited here, which is admittedly dangerous.  

      I personally believe that both of our candidates can win, should win, but that HRC will have the easier path to victory in the fall due to advantages in FL and some of the rust belt states.   But there are arguments in Obama's favor too.

      by ActivatedbyBush on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:33:38 PM PDT

      •  I can accept that statement

        The problem many of us have is the constant drumbeat from many HRC supporters that the remaining undeclared superdelegates REALLY SHOULD vote overwhelmingly for Hillary (and if you do the math, you'll see that it would have to be overwhelming support from the remaining undeclared supers for her to win the nomination), overthrowing the verdict determined by the voters (since, barring Hillary pulling ~65% of all remaining pledged delegates, she will trail Obama in pledged delegates after all the contests), because there's NO WAY Obama can get elected and Hillary has a MUCH better chance.

        That's not supported by any objective evidence.  And the argument that HRC's supporters have fallen back on, time and again now, is "well, she does so much better in the large swing states (aka, Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida)."

        True, as things look now, she is polling a touch better in those states, and that's certainly something to take into account, but she's not doing THAT much better, and Obama brings other things to the table (better performance in certain other states, for one) that makes him (at least now) appear to be just as "electable".

        by synchronicityii on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 04:42:06 PM PDT

        •  Seems silly to me

          If one candidate wins the PV and PDs then they should be the nominee.  Period.   Any other argument is speculative.  Of course I am now listening to MSNBC distorting the truth about the vote

          by ActivatedbyBush on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 06:05:31 PM PDT

  •  No way in hell Gore backs Clinton

    Anyone who knows anything about the relationship between the two of them knows that would not happen.

    by democrattotheend on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 03:21:11 PM PDT

•  Bosnian Snipers Shoot Down Hillarys Poll Numbers

  by DFutureIsNow on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:00:29 PM PDT

  •  liar liar Sniper fire n/t

    by dan667 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 03:02:04 PM PDT

•  I edited your tags to include

  Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Pennsylvania Primary

  I hope you don't mind.

  by be the change you seek on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:04:44 PM PDT

  •  Thanks

    you are the change I seek - at least for tags ( * _ * )

    by Kitty on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:10:50 PM PDT

•  If Obama could somehow pull out a win in PA

  The main impact might be to dry up what remains of Hillary's funding.  She might want to fight this until she's dragged kicking and screaming from the convention floor in Denver, but the folks with cash will be quicker to abandon a hopeless campaign.

  I still don't see any way she quits until after the results come in from NC and IN, but a win in PA, followed by a win in IN and a big win in NC, would cause her to drop out within a day or two after May 6.

  Personally, I expect HRC to win PA, lose NC, and for IN to be up for grabs.  If she wins IN and wins PA bigger than she loses NC, expect her to be in through at least the last primary and possibly make it an ugly fight all summer.  But if she loses NC bigger than she wins PA and loses IN, then it's a different ballgame.

  by synchronicityii on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:09:12 PM PDT

  •  Yeah, the race would be over

    I still think it wont happen, but if Obama won PA, the race would be over.

    by jj32 on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:15:04 PM PDT

    •  I think she'd hang in til May 6th

      But yeah, it would be playing out the string.  An Obama win in PA would be huge.

      But I don't want to get my hopes up.  I just want him to keep it to single digits.  And be aggressive and active in pursuing those votes!  One thing that bothers me about BHO is that, when he feels he has a lead, he tends to go into a "four corners" approach (using basketball terminology since it's tourney time) and try to hold on and run out the clock.  He did this to an extent in New Hampshire, and has admitted that he and his staff got "a little too comfortable" just before Texas (even though that and Ohio were dogfights).  I'm hoping that, although he may be dampening down expectations, that he's approaching PA as if it's a possible win.  He should have the advantages in money and staffing to go hard there without damaging his efforts in IN and NC.

      The one thing he could learn from the Clintons is this: when you have a lead, you don't let up.  Be gracious and all, play clean, but try to put in the dagger and end it.  When your opponent is on the ropes, knock them down and out, don't wait for the bell to ring (OK, switched to a boxing metaphor, fine).

      by synchronicityii on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:22:38 PM PDT

  •  She'd concede within 2 days

    even her campaign has basically conceded that she needs to win PA. I don't expect Obama to win there, but if he can pull it off it's over.

    by democrattotheend on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 03:21:49 PM PDT

•  I'd made a joke this morning

  that we'd see a new poll in PA, and we'd be swamped with diaries about it.

  Isn't one or two enough?  I thought we'd all sworn two months ago that polls weren't accurate- well it seems in the absence of real news, they've now become the jumping off point for way too many diaries.

  by Dcoronata on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 02:12:56 PM PDT