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Obama closes the gap in national polls |
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By Aaron Blake and Sam Youngman
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Posted: 04/19/07 08:24 PM [ET] |
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has harnessed a wave of positive fundraising press and parlayed it into a small but consistent surge in nationwide polls, creating what is looking more and more like a dual-frontrunner race for the Democratic nomination for president.
At the same time, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) campaigns make the case that national polls aren’t nearly as significant as state polls, since the contest is decided on a state-by-state basis.
Obama trails Clinton by two, four, and five points in the most recent Rasmussen, CNN and USA Today/Gallup polls, respectively, after consistently trailing by double-digit margins through March.
He also trails by seven points in the most recent Time magazine poll, conducted two weeks ago.
A number of polls continue to show the race in double digits. But the new, closer national polls are unprecedented in the months-old Democratic battle.
The three closest polls, all conducted in the last 10 days, come after Obama’s fundraising totals for the first quarter unexpectedly rivaled Clinton’s. Obama actually tapped many more donors than Clinton and, over the last week, it was revealed that he raised more for the primary campaign.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll released this week shows Clinton maintaining her double-digit lead at 17 points. But in all, out of about 10 major national polls conducted this month, Obama is within 10 points in the majority of them.
In March, the USA Today/Gallup poll showed Obama trailing by 13 and 14 points. In a poll conducted last week, Clinton’s lead is cut to five. The same is true of the CNN poll, which last month showed Clinton up by 15 points and now shows her lead at four.
The Rasmussen poll uses a different method and has frequently shown the race to be closer than most polls, but Obama’s gains are evident in it as well. Over the last three weeks, Obama has cut the lead from seven to five and, most recently, two.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen said Obama’s recent upswing represents a second surge — the first came when he initially declared for the race — and can be attributed to the legitimacy Obama earned through fundraising.
Obama surprised observers by nearly matching Clinton’s $26 million raised. He also gained credibility by tallying twice as many donors and raising more for the primary.
“It’s hard for Sen. Clinton to rise, because she’s been on top from the very beginning,” Rasmussen said. “I don’t think she’s falling; Barack Obama is gaining ground and picking up a lot of the people who prefer somebody other than Hillary.
“We’re looking at two frontrunners right now,” he added, reinforcing that polling represents only a snapshot in time.
In a blog posting last week, Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn addressed the new, closer polls — at that point, the Time poll had just come out and a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll put the lead at 10 — and compared them to a Gallup poll that was showing the race holding at 19 points.
He said it was important to look at state polls, because they provide a more apt comparison by surveying actual primary voters and because they tend to have larger samples.
“In New York, New Jersey and Florida, Hillary leads by 20-30 points,” Penn wrote. “In California, Texas and Pennsylvania, she leads by 13-19 points. These states have the lion’s share of Democratic primary voters and delegates.
“So if you are looking at Democratic primary voters nationally, the state-by-state evidence supports the findings of Gallup.”
Polls from the early-primary states illustrate a great deal of parity.
One poll conducted by Zogby in New Hampshire in early April shows Clinton leading with 29 percent and Obama and Edwards tied in second with 23 percent.
A poll commissioned by CNN/WMUR from the same time period shows Clinton with 27 percent, Edwards with 21 percent and Obama with 20 percent.
Political analyst Charlie Cook challenged the notion that Obama is making any significant gains on Clinton.
“I don’t see the gap particularly close,” Cook said, citing a number of other polls. “He’s rising faster than she is, but she’s still rising.”
Asked if Obama’s campaign is in fact becoming the “insurgent” campaign of the 2008 race, Cook noted that such a label would be bad news for Team Obama, citing the failed “insurgent” campaigns of former Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Eric Schultz, a spokesman for Edwards, dismissed any theories that Obama is gaining momentum or that the race is shaping up as a two-person contest.
Schultz added that Edwards won South Carolina in 2004, and expects to win it again.
Obama’s campaign declined to comment.
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