Buckeye State Blog - New Quinnipiac Poll Giving HRC Nightmares - Comments

Anybody wonder

heinrich — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:48:16 -0700

how Hillary supporters get around the fact that her negatives are huge? That is, it is extremely well-documented that Hillary inspires tremendous animosity--well-grounded or not--from rightists and independents. In other words, in a general election she will inspire a huge turnout from non-Democrats motivated by the fact that they have an opportunity to vote against her (regardless of their tepidness towards McCain). Voting isn't an issue of identity politics or personality or anything else...it's a STRATEGIC exercise in power that has consequences beyond pulling a lever for the person who you think earned it, or looks like you, or who you like. ...You might be choosing to lose!

What is your exact problem with Obama?

JeanLR — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:00:19 -0700

Modern, you've been getting yourself tied up in little arguements about little details, I'm curious about why you are so hell-bent on beating that drum? What about Obama motivates you so much? Are we supposed to vote for Hillary for some reason? Am I supposed to not vote for Obama? Let's just get to the heart of the matter, what's your beef with Obama?

Maybe step back and look at the goals you are trying to achieve with this line of arguement. You might see that your time and effort could be focused differently with better results.

Jerid, you're changing your argument...

modernesquire — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:21:11 -0700

Here's what you said:

"What I call a person polling above 50%=Hillary Clinton three weeks before any primary." (emphasis added.)

That's what you said that I called a blatant falsehood, because Obama has had the lead in a number of polls three weeks before that State's primary.

You're the one claiming a poll which has Hillary above 50% with over a twenty-point lead should be giving her nightmares because Obama has closed the gap by five points over the last two months.

At that rate, Obama will catch up to Clinton in eight months.

Jerid, there's no analysis to your post. It's pure spin. You're spinning a poll where Clinton has a definitive majority vote and a sizeable > 20 pts. lead and saying it's giving her nightmares. That's simply absurd.

Apparently you forgot the polling numbers in SC and the most recent primaries. Because none of them showed Clinton ahead by over 50% three weeks before those primaries.

At least I have comparisons, you're spinning poll data out of thin air and representing that Clinton was ahead by over 50% three weeks before every primary. It's not true, Jerid.

I have a problem with this spin because I think it's intellectually dishonest to spin this as a "bad" poll for Clinton.

My bones of contention this week have been a mailer on NAFTA by Obama which, by all objective accounts, was misleading and your misleading spin on this poll. That's it, and that's not "spin," Jerid. That's calling out spin when it is factually incorrect.

Patently untrue. Blah blah blah

Jerid — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:13:28 -0700

Modern, Every state is a Clinton state ahead of the primary. Every damn state. The only state I know that's had positive Obama polling numbers far out was Utah (or Idaho, forget which one). Aside from that, every state is Clinton County until the momentum catches up. Any claim otherwise is a lie...call my stuff spin all you want, the data doesn't match up to your argument. And in the Strickland-Blackwell race, I don't recall Blackwell winning anything even similar to 23 states before the General election (did he win anything there ahead of time? I doubt it). Once again, your comparisons are disingenuine. This analysis isn't that controversial modern. However, you seem to have a bone to pick with anything that puts Obama even in a slightly positive light. To me that's the best indicator of spin. The numbers don't lie, Clinton leads everywhere before game time. Also, just today Clinton hedged off her claim that Ohio is a firewall - despite the fact that her surrogates EVERYWHERE have been making the same claim for weeks. If that isn't indicative of fear or "nightmares" over Ohio, I don't know what is. Tighten up the ship Modern.

Simply not true...

modernesquire — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:05:41 -0700

It's entirely untrue that Clinton has been polling above 50% before every primary. That's patently untrue Jerid, and you should know that! She wasn't polling above 50% three weeks before most of the races Obama has won (S.C., the Potomac primaries, Washington, Maine, etc.)

You make a ridiculous and blatantly untrue claim like that and then accuse me of being sloppy?

Am I correct or not that these are the same numbers that Strickland and Blackwell had during most of the election?

Am I correct or not that almost all candidates, barring some unforeseen momental disaster, who poll above 50% and have over a twenty-point lead three weeks before the election wind up winning that election?

Isn't there similarities to the dismissive language of this poll that you're using and what Blackwell's supporters said in 2006?

I'm refuting your "analysis" (which is really nothing more than pure spin), by pointing out that under convention polling wisdom and historical precedent, your claim that Hillary Clinton should be having "nightmares" about this poll is foolish and lacks any objective criteria to make such ridiculous and unfounded claims.

Edwards dropped out, he's raised $30 m in January, he split Super Tuesday, and has had a number of really good results since December, and yet he's only closed the gap by five points with three weeks to go. And you want to talk as if it's over for Clinton? Frankly, I'm stunned by these numbers because with all this momentum talk by people like you (of course, after New Hampshire and Nevada, all the Obama people could talk about was how this wouldn't be a "momentum" election), you'd think that Obama would be far more closer to Hillary than these polls show. He isn't.

Who's being sloppy, Jerid? If I had ever seen you before now spin a poll where a candidate was polling over 50% as a sign that they should be "nervous", let alone having "nightmares," I'd consider this analysis. It's not Jerid. It's pure unadulterated political spin and not very good one at that.

What I call a person polling above 50%.

Jerid — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:47:08 -0700

Hillary Clinton three weeks before any primary. And yes, I think any forward progress with Clinton's Ohio (or any state for that matter) machine is impressive. Dude, check the numbers. He's got a tough road to go in Ohio, but you're going to need to refute my analysis with something substantive other than a "look at Strickland-Blackwell" before you get to pull the "nuh uh" card. Seriously Modern, you're getting plain sloppy.

You know what you call a person polling above 50%?

modernesquire — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:37:43 -0700

The winner.

These are Strickland-Blackwell numbers and you're giving the same speil that the Blackwell crowd gave then, too, Jerid.

You write about Obama closing the gap like that's somehow surprising that he'd close the gap with Clinton after winning Iowa, Soutch Carolina, and splitting Super Tuesday and Edwards dropping out.

And yet, despite it all, you think it's impressive that Obama has closed the gap by five points?

It's a twenty-point lead for Clinton with her polling above the margin of error over 50% and you say this poll gives her nightmares? Nightmares? Name me any other candidate who would be sweating a poll that showed them twenty points ahead and significant above 50% with less than a month to go?

Nice spin, Jerid. We know how well discounting polls because the "momentum for your candidate is stronger than this poll reflects" worked for Blackwell.

Another funny thing about that poll

Tom Smith — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:23:47 -0700

I read the poll, and one thing caught my eye. When they asked about who would you vote for in a general election, the undecideds went up sugnificantly from a hypothetical Clinton/McCain to a hypothetical Obama/McCain matchup. This indicates that Obama doesn't have a lot of name recognition at this point. It would be interesting to see the like/dislike numbers for this race.

Rasmussen has Clinton up 14

54cermak — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:38:59 -0700

Rasmussen has Clinton up 14 51-37 in a post-Potomac Ohio poll. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/ohio/ohio_democratic_presidential_primary He's got his work cut out for him, but its not dire by any stretch. As has been pointed out, Ohio hasn;t been paying attention and so is a few weeks behind national opinion and won't turnaround overnight. If Obama is still holding a double digit lead in national polls on 3/4, I don't see how Ohio doesn't reflect that as well.

New Quinnipiac Poll Giving HRC Nightmares

Jerid — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:29:02 -0700

Yes, there's a new Quinny Poll out today showing the race in Ohio. And sure, it's got HRC up again (big surprise). The sample was taken between February 6 - 12 (1,748 Ohio voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percent, including 564 Democratic likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percent):

Clinton    55%
Obama    34%
DK/NA         9%

Sure, Obama's got a ways to go, but consider for a second where Quinny had him in December:

Clinton 45%
Obama 19%
Edwards 13%

While Clinton has gained 10 points in the buckeye state from December to this latest release, Obama had a 15 point bump. All in all, that's a positive gain on Senator Clinton's lead in Ohio.

Secondly, this latest poll's sample started all the way back on February 6th...before Obama's commanding wins in Louisina, Nebraska, Washington, Virgin Islands, Maine, D.C., Maryland or Virginia. Quinny started calling folks for this poll before those developments, even if only starting the sample a few days before those wins, so this latest poll doesn't really guage the whole "momentum" issue in Ohio as well as I'd like. And considering the fact that momentum seems to be what Obama is winning most states on (every state is a Clinton state until a week or so before the primary), I think it's fair to take this poll with a grain of salt. At best it's a reading of HRC's maximum possible support.

With that in mind, there are two other interesting tidbits in the poll. The first is that HRC's base support amongst Ohio women (largely what her lead is credited to) may be slippling. In the December matchup Quinny found women support Clinton over Obama 53 – 15, this latest release shows women favor Clinton only 56 – 30. Honestly I think that's the most interesting tidbit from the entire poll, especially considering the fact that Obama has been surging among women in other February states (most notably winning the women demo. in Fairfax county in Virginia). If Hillary isn't able to shore up Ohio women, that'll be the beginning of the end.

And finally, the Ohio race will come down to turnout. No way around it. The higher the turnout in Ohio, the stronger Obama's chances are of taking the state.