Legal Commentary

Tsunami Tuesday: Polls and Delegates

By Jeralyn

USA Today/Gallup, CBS/New York Times and McClatchey/MSNBC have new polling results. The full CBS Democratic poll is here (pdf).

Nationally, Hillary and Obama are close to being tied. CBS says Hillary is substantially ahead in the Super Tuesday states:

Among voters in those states, she leads Obama, 49 percent to 31 percent, with 16 percent still undecided.

Clinton also holds a big edge on the issue of most concern to Democratic voters: the economy. Nearly 60 percent say she would do a better job of managing the economy than Obama. However, more than two-thirds of Democratic voters see the policy differences between the two candidates as minor.

McClatchy-MSNBC polled 9 states, and found Hillary ahead in all but Georgia. (Remember the maps showing the Florida counties won by Obama? All 9 were in the most northern part of the state, 7 bordered on Georgia and 1 on Alabama.)

More...

Turnout could make a difference because of the way Democratic delegates are counted. Obama is hoping for a big youth and African American turnout.

Democrats award delegates based on the percentage of votes candidates receive in congressional districts across the country. As a result, placing second can still earn a candidate delegates.

On Tuesday, 1,681 delegates will be awarded of the 2,025 necessary to win the Democratic nomination.

While I think Hillary will win California and New York, Obama likely will pick up a lot of delegates and I expect he will win some other states besides Georgia, despite what the polls say.

Bottom line: Neither Hillary nor Obama may clinch the nomination on Feb. 5. Obama's got a lot of momentum and is getting a lot more media play than Hillary. But he also has a lot of ground to catch up. I think it will be very close.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 04, 2008 (boomark / email).