Baracklash In Kentucky
Posted on April 19th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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As I have noted before, people in Kentucky seem unusually hostile to Obama, and far more so than in any other border state, so Kentucky may represent an extreme case of surging anti-Obama sentiment. Obama’s general election polling in Kentucky cratered post-Wright, so Kentuckians seem to respond strongly to all of these Obama controversies. Nonetheless, it seems worth noting that in Democratic primary polling by SUSA, Obama has lost significant ground in the past two weeks and now trails Clinton statewide by 36 in a poll conducted 4/12-4/14. SUSA sums up the change:
Compared to an identical SurveyUSA tracking poll released two weeks ago, Obama has lost ground among men and women, young and old, conservatives and moderates. In Western KY, Clinton had led by 30, now leads by 43. In Eastern KY, Clinton had led by 52, now leads by 63. in North Central KY, Clinton had led by 30, now leads by 39. In greater Louisville, Clinton had led by 12, now leads by 16.
But remember, folks, no one cares about what Obama said and Obama is gaining ground daily!
Update: Their Indiana polling for the Democratic primary, conducted 4/11-4/13, shows the same slippage:
Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released two weeks ago, Clinton is up 3 points, Obama is down 4 points. Clinton had led by 9 at the beginning of April, leads by 16 mid-month.
Of course, everyone seems to be forgetting that ARG Pennsylvania poll that showed a 20-point swing to Clinton and against Obama in one week.
Filed under: politics
Daniel, are you giving more weight to the polls whose results you prefer? The RealClearPolitics average for Indiana shows HRC’s lead down to 2.2 per cent, below 6.0 per cent in Pennsylvania, and BHO’s lead up to 8.9 per cent nationally. Of course, that’s partly due to the Newseek poll, which might be an outlier, giving BHO a 19.0 per cent advantage.
I’m not giving them more weight. No one else, so far as I know, has done a Kentucky poll. The SUSA polling is often reliable, and they’re one of the few that has crosstabs and has regular polls to be compared to one another. Obviously, Rasmussen is showing something very different in Pennsylvania, and one of them is going to be really right and one of them is going to be really wrong. Everyone else seems to be paying the most attention to the polls that show tightening and ignoring the others. I want to remind people that there actually is some evidence that shows an anti-Obama move in the polls.
Fair enough.
I’ll stick my neck out far enough for the voters to chop through it–Hillary takes PA with a margin in the high single digits. The Iran-Iraq war, as Mr. Roach calls it, continues.
Since we seem to be having a little war here over the “no one cares” issue, a few more comments are in order. First, the polls right after the comment showed litle movement. The average of the polls didn’t show any response. It’s not until right about now that Clinton seems to be possibly gaining back lost ground – which is what she did in Ohio with massive negative campaigning in the week before that election.
So I’d modify my position. Initially, no one cared about Obama’s statement. But if any charge gets repeated often enough, and interpeted through a divisive, negative lens, and made the focus of political campaigns for two weeks, and gets piled in with a whole bunch of other charges, well, it eventually has an effect. This is the politics of the petty negative winning out over substance. Relentless repetition creates a momentum all its own. We’ve seen this before.
But harping on the ARG poll seems silly, in that it’s clearly an outlier from one of the least respected pollsters out there. No one else has numbers anything like that.
We’ll see how it turns out, of course. Hillary tends to gain support from last minute deciders, so It’s probably Hillary by eight.
Mentioning the ARG poll twice doesn’t seem like “harping” on it to me, but that’s not important. The margin they give probably is too big and the movement was awfully sudden and large, but I wouldn’t rule out something even as lopsided as 58-42. I’m not saying it will be 58-42, but that this is still possible. It will probably be similar to Ohio’s final result, 54-44, or thereabouts, but I am not going to declare this to be my “prediction.” SUSA was showing a wider gap in the race, but has since come back towards the other pollsters. It is going to turn on that 8-12% undecided vote, and they are probably going to break for Clinton, since very late deciders seem to go for her for whatever reason. Rasmussen’s margin of five seems too small to me, but I generally trust Rasmussen and don’t want to see them get it badly wrong.