Obama Gains 20 Points In New Ohio Poll

Just off the presses. Obama's up 20 points from the last poll released gauging Ohio voters in December.

The sample of 720 Ohio adults (3.7+/- MoE), in a poll conducted between Sunday and Monday found:

Clinton      56%
Obama      39%
Other          3%
Undecided   2%

This poll was conducted by SurveyUSA, a firm which has proved its mettle in recent states (most notably California when other polls were much farther off the mark that SuSa's). 

Also, the survey found these interesting notes:

Clinton's lead comes entirely from women, where she leads by 29 points. She and Obama are tied among men. Whites vote 3:2 Clinton. Blacks vote 3:1 Obama. Obama runs strongest in Western Ohio, where he holds Clinton to 50% and trails her by 5 points. In Eastern Ohio Clinton leads by 18; in Central Ohio she leads by 30.

Judging from past primary states, I think Clinton's lead among women will come down, and the margin in white voters will decrease. However, I have to ay I am surprised Obama's strongest area is Western Ohio. I'd like to see the breakdown for northeast Ohio.

In 1988 Jesse Jackson got about 85,000 votes in what is now the 11th Congressional district. For the past few days I've been trying to make some predictions on turnout and what a win number is in Ohio, but regardless I think Obama will surpass Jackson's tally previous tally in Northeast Ohio (which is the largest number of votes obtained by any presidential candidate in the 11th in a competitive Democratic Ohio Presidential primary). So we shall see.

Regardless, these results show Obama with a 20 point bump from Quinniapac's December 5th poll. That poll showed Clinton with a 26 point lead over Obama, whereas this poll shows that lead down to 17 points. That's an interesting trend.