Saturday, January 05, 2008

Obama Surging

If anyone doubted the Obama bounce coming out of Iowa, two offerings today should offer confirmation. First, the American Research Group rolling poll, which shows a dramatic change:
Obama 38%
Clinton 26%
Edwards 20%

Barack Obama leads John Edwards among men 42% to 21%, with 19% for Hillary Clinton. Among women, Obama leads Clinton 35% to 31%, with 20% for Edwards. Clinton leads Obama among Democrats 34% to 32%, while Obama leads Edwards among undeclared voters (independents) 49% to 21%.

The ARG poll, just two days ago had Clinton up 4%. This seismic shift amounts to a full 16% swing for Obama, a gigantic bounce coming out of Iowa.

Earlier today, Rasmussen released its first post-Iowa poll, with similar evidence of a massive swing towards Obama:
Barack Obama has taken a huge lead in the first pure post-Iowa poll of New Hampshire. Rasmussen gives Obama 37%, Hillary Clinton 27%, John Edwards 19%, and Bill Richardson 8%. Rasmussen's last poll from two weeks ago had Clinton at 31%, Obama 28%, Edwards 18%, and Richardson 6%.

The poll was conducted on Friday, a one-day poll with the margin of error at ±4.5% — meaning that Obama's ten-point lead is just outside the margin. Also, Obama leads Hillary by 5 points among core Democrats, and by 16 points among independents. Indies are expected to make up 40% of the Dem primary electorate, according to the survey.

Iowa is irrelevant? Apparently, not this year.

UPDATE

Two more polls out, that show the same trends, although a much tighter race. The CNN/WMUR poll:
Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois all tied up, with each grabbing the support of 33 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in the Granite State.

Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina is in third place with 20 percent.

“Both Obama and Edwards appear to have benefited form the Iowa caucuses. Each picked up 3 points in New Hampshire. Clinton lost one point, since our last poll taken before the caucuses,” says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.

The new CNN/WMUR survey was conducted Friday and Saturday, after the Iowa caucuses.

The biggest shift appears to be electability. 36 percent of likely Democratic New Hampshire primary voters now think Clinton has the best chance of beating the Republican presidential nominee. That’s down nine points from our last Granite State survey, which was conducted December 27-30.

Obama is just behind Clinton when it comes electability, at 35 percent, a virtual tie. Obama gained 13 points up since our pre-caucus poll.

“Obama got something else out of winning Iowa: a big boost in his perceived electability. A week ago, Clinton led Obama by better than two to one when New Hampshire Democrats were asked which candidate has the best chance of beating the Republican in November. Obama’s victory in an overwhelmingly white state may have resolved some doubts about an African-American candidate’s electability,” says Schneider.

For context, the last CNN poll had Clinton +4%, so again here we see a bounce, although less pronounced. However, those electability numbers are a real plus for Obama and could pay dividends at the polls. Also, it looks like Edwards is still polling quite well, all the findings show his support strong.

Another poll, this one from the Concord Monitor, which shows a statistical tie:
Among likely Democratic primary voters, Barack Obama was the choice of 34 percent of those surveyed and Hillary Clinton was the choice of 33 percent, suggesting the race is a virtual dead heat. John Edwards was next at 23 percent, followed by Bill Richardson at 4 percent and Dennis Kucinich at 3 percent.

Research 2000 surveyed 400 likely Republican and 400 likely Democratic primary voters yesterday and today. The margin of error for each sample is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

While there seems to be some difference will the four polls today, it is noteworthy that none of them show Clinton ahead and all suggest Obama has the momentum. If you average out all the post-Iowa results you get Obama +5.75%.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah its called bounce for a reason. it goes up then comes down. The polls you site by the way were done on Friday evening the worst noght to get an accurate poll and the noght that would show the greatest bounce for him. Tonight, Sunday is the better night to judge by. There are also far morepolls showing a close race than the ones you sited but I guess that would be inconvenient to your arguement.

Anonymous said...

Obama can't win because he did hard drugs casually enough to call it, "scoring some blow" There's a reason the Republicans want him to win.

First ad;

Latin families crying as they describe losing loved ones to the drug war. Then the caption reads; "Obama calls it scoring some blow. We call it supporting drug cartels."

Second Ad;

A shot of a small hut in Africa. Obama's grandmother lived in this hut with no, health care, nor water and no electricity, while he bought himself a 1.9 million dollar house. If he won't make sure his grandmother has health care housing and utilites why would he care if you don't."

Third ad;

Children playing in a school playground. caption; "If you wouldn't vote for a cocaine user to be on your children's school board, why would you vote for one to be President?"

That's why he will never be President even if the Democrats allow 17 year olds and independents to commit political suicide and nominate him. Not because he's black because of his cocaine use, lack of experience, questionable record etc etc etc.

Then we get to his record in the house which is mostly one of not showing up and not conveneing the committee he chairs. Hardly an agent for change.

He's not very good at defending himself either. He gets flustered and fast.

The Republicans will eat him for breakfast.

Steve V said...

"There are also far morepolls showing a close race than the ones you sited but I guess that would be inconvenient to your arguement."

That's just pure BULLSHIT, I cited all the polls. And, the one's that do show a close race, like Zobgy and the Suffolk poll, show Obama closing since yesterday, which means he did particularly well in the most recent findings. It would seem you are the one with the bias here, because I put all four polls in, released late yesterday, and in my post today, I included EVERY single one.

anon

"There's a reason the Republicans want him to win."

Where did you come up with that one? Everything I have heard is that the Reps are licking their chops at the prospects of Clinton. Who has higher negatives? Who can appeal to independents? Who can bring red states like Georgia into play?

Steve V said...

anon 1

BTW, weren't you the same person saying Iowa wouldn't matter on Friday?????