Legal Commentary

ABC News National Poll: Obama Favored, Restrictions on Superdelegates Disfavored

By Jeralyn

There aren't too many silver linings for Hillary Clinton in this ABC News/Washington Post national poll. (Full poll results here, pdf., Washington Post article on it is here.)

The poll, out today, is a national one. It finds Democrats believe Obama should win the nomination and is more electable in November.

The silver lining: The views of those polled on superdelegates:

Only 13 percent of Democrats say superdelegates should support whoever’s won the most regular delegates in primaries and caucuses – a count in which Obama’s ahead, and seemingly likely to stay so. Instead a plurality, 46 percent, say superdelegates should support the candidate who’s won the most popular votes, a tally in which Clinton still has hopes. And 37 percent say superdelegates should go with their own sense of which candidate they think is best.

In other words, if Hillary does well in the remaining states, and she should, at least in PA, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico, a whopping 87% of those polled don't think it's a problem for superdelegates to vote according to either the popular vote total or their conscience instead of by the pledged delegate total.

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Each superdelegate can decide on their own whether to count Florida and Michigan in arriving at their calculation of the popular vote. I think a great argument can be made to count both Florida and Michigan's votes as is.

Not quite as significant, but important, is the majority belief that Hillary should stay in even if she loses PA and that the long race is not hurting Democratic prospects in November.

I think PA is critical and Indiana very important for Hillary. I also think she'll take both easily. North Carolina, South Dakota and Montana aren't going Democratic in November no matter what, so I don't think they matter as much. Same for Kentucky and West Virginia. For example, since 1964, the only time the Dems took North Carolina was in 1976 when they voted for Carter-Mondale. Neither Bill Clinton, Al Gore or John Kerry won North Carolina. Of course, Puerto Rico won't count in November either, but from a popular vote standpoint, a nice win there could be a boost to Hillary.

I think it's too early to call the race. We've got a debate to get through tomorrow night and PA next week. I'm going to wait until after PA and perhaps Indiana before starting my number crunching.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).