First from Gallup:
That would be a 4% lead, outside of the +/-2% MOE for the poll.
Insider Advantage (pdf) has Hillary with a 2-point lead over Obama in NC. Rasmussen has Clinton up by 5 points in Indiana while TeleResearch pegs the margin at 10.
On the national front, the polls show Clinton to be the stronger candidate. A CBS/NY Times poll (pdf) has Clinton beating McCain by 5 points, while Obama only manages a tie. In NH, she trails McCain by 3 points, while Obama trails by 10. According to this Quinnipiac poll, Clinton tops McCain in FL (+8), OH (+10) and PA (+14). By comparison, McCain beats Obama in FL (+1), and OH (+1) while Obama wins PA but by a smaller margin (+9) than Clinton.
I want a win in November. Hillary Clinton is the candidate!
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
So why bother with the expense of primaries? Just pick the candidate with the higher poll numbers and be done with it.
Obama will win North Carolina by 7% and Indiana is a toss up. In Virginia Hillary would still lose to McCain by close to 20% and Obama by 8-9%. Just an observation and based on the polling I have seen. If Hillary wins Virginia will not be targeted, plain and simple. On the other hand she truly has that Clinton political blood which is to fight to the bitter end. A truly valiant effort on her behalf, which I assumed would happen anyway because if there is a way to still get the nomination Hillary will explore the possibility. Either way the Dems don’t need to get out of the Bushes and straight in to the cane (McCaine) fields . See you at the rally Monday.
“Hillary on a roll”….Yes, she is!!! Yes, she is!!!
Gene …I’m thankful for that “Clinton political blood which is to fight to the bitter end.”
On the other hand, Morning Joe and his MSNBC guests were all a flutter this morning about how she, at this point, is the better candidate of the two and the “one that would beat McCain in OH, PA, etc.” Terms used to describe her: strong, an expert on the issues, never off a beat, etc.
AEM – if that were the case, Hillary would already be the nominee. Remember when she was winning all the polls early on?
Gene – so VA isn’t going to go Democratic. That’s nothing new. The mix of states that will be targeted is always going to be different for different candidates. Just look at the differences in the state polls I linked. Would be it nice if VA was targeted? You bet. But you know what would be sweeter? A win in November.
sleepless – I’m with ya 😉
Vivian,
Your point would be stronger if you added emphasis that Hillary seems to be stronger in the battleground states. Obama has won many large primary victories in states that are hopelessly Red. Deep Blue states will end up in the Democratic candidate’s column no matter who is the nominee just like the Dark Red states are going to end up in McCain’s column no matter who the Democrats nominate.
Obama is going to have to run against John McCain, not George Dubyah Bush. It is my opinion the Republicans nominated the best candidate out of those running to make it a tight race.
Obama supporters seem to think that by winning the Democratic nomination he automatically will be swept into the Oval Office. Haven’t they heard about that thing called the General Election? Some of the luster is already being rubbed from his supposedly untarnishable campaign.
Indiana is not a battleground state, texas is not a battleground state, north carolina is a possibility, and Virginia is also if the right candidate is chosen. vivian I do agree with you that each election cycle battleground states are different. the problem I have is that I am out of the plant working our state and I desperately wanted Virginia to be in the mix. It seems that depending on circumstances I will mostly be getting out the vote now for Mark Warner and some of the congressional races in our area. It would please me however to get the presidency without virginia, while still electing Warner and also knocking off the hated Drakester.
“if that were the case, Hillary would already be the nominee. Remember when she was winning all the polls early on?”
I do indeed. That’s why we have primaries — to let the people speak directly, not through the proxies that the pollsters happen to call. You seem to be saying that nominee should be chosen by the pollsters, not the voters.
Mouse, you can be really dense sometimes. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that she’s on a roll, coming on strong in the stretch.
Gene – I understand what you’re saying but I just don’t see VA being in play regardless of the nominee.
Sorry, I’ve got to say I don’t give much thought to tracking polls. As you can see, pick a day and get a different number.
Tracking polls at this point had Robb looking good in ’00, Mary Sue Terry was a shoe in as governor in 1993, North was ahead in 1994, and in 1998 in NM’s 1rst CD my candidate was 8 points ahead with a MOE of 3+/- (he lost)
I find tracking polls good only to gauge message. Right now HRC is gaining traction and her message is working. Obama has taken some hits and may or may not recover. However, anything can change during the next polling period.
Don’t get me wrong, Gallup is probably the best out there. However, I find that following a tracking this far out (probably at least another month) is like me trying to predict the price of gas come July 4th. There’s too many variables in play.
I’d still love to see crosstabs for a 2 month period.
So what? Your statement “I want a win in November. Hillary Clinton is the candidate!” indicates that you desire some result, based on the polling data, which would be contrary to the results of the caucuses and primaries.
Is that not correct? Is that not what you want?
If that is your desire, why bother to hold caucuses and primaries at all? Just go back to letting the party leaders (a.k.a. “superdelegates” ) decide, based on the latest polling data when the convention rolls around. It would be much cheaper.
Hmmm. How do you make it NOT do a smiley?
PV – that’s why I provided the other polls, not just the tracking one. Combined, they show that Hillary is, as I said in the headline, on a roll. (However, I must say that polls really only give us trends, anyway. That being the case, aren’t all polls really tracking polls, regardless of whether they are rolling ones or not? )
Mouse – that’s one heck of a leap there. How you got to the idea that I want the result based on polls is almost beyond comprehension. Let’s use a little logic, shall we?
– Headline: Hillary is on a roll (premise)
– Polls – shows Hillary gaining ground (data to support the premise)
How you equate commentary (“I want a win” ) with I want the polls to be the reason for the win makes no sense.
Oh – and to not make a smilie, put a space between the punctuation mark and the closing parenthesis.
OK, let’s try some logic.
1) Headline: Hillary is on a roll (premise)
2) Polls: shows Hillary gaining ground (data to support the premise)
3) Desire: “I want a win in November.”
4) Conclusion: “Hillary Clinton is the candidate!”
Why is Hillary Clinton the candidate? Because you want a win in November.
Why do you think she is more likely to win? Because of the polling data.
From your own words, one can only conclude that you want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic candidate because, based on the polling data, she is more likely to win in November than Obama is.
If Obama were trailing in the delegate count, would you want him to be the nominee if the polls said he was much more likely to beat McCain in November?
If you do, then you want the polls to count more than the caucuses and primaries.
If you do not, then why do you advocate that for Clinton?
Ack!! The bold did not turn off! It was supposed to end after “polling data.”
Sorry. (Is there any way to add a “Preview” button? If seen them on some blogs.)
I fixed it.
No, Mouse, the polling data is provided to encourage two things. First, there are those people who haven’t voted who also read this site. So if the polling data indicates that she is a stronger candidate in November, then I would like them to cast their vote for her.
Second, the superdelegates are still in play. Again, their job is to get us a win in November by casting their votes for the strongest candidate.
So it’s about trying to influence those who haven’t voted, not about trying to make the polls count more.
And if you’ve read what I’ve been writing on this blog for months now, you wouldn’t make such a ridiculous leap.