Democratic primary - South Carolina
Polling from South Carolina has been as stable on the Democratic side as it was volatile on the Republican side. But are there strong currents going on underneath?
Here are the topline numbers:
The four pollsters that have polled the state this month have been in overwhelming agreement on Hillary's support. All six polls had it at 30-33%.
On Obama too, many of the numbers are close. Four of the six polls had him at 40-44%.
Two exceptions bookend Obama's results. A Survey USA poll from right after the Iowa caucuses had Obama at an impressive 50%, in the afterglow of his victory there. But the latest Rasmussen poll, held last Sunday, had Obama down to 38%, shrinking his lead over Hillary to just five points.
Rasmussen is the only pollster that did more than one poll this month. Comparing its polling from January 6, 9 and 13, Obama goes from 42% to 42% to 38%; Hillary from 30% to 30% to 33%; Edwards from 14% to 15% to 17%.
For anyone who thought that the race flaps that heightened tensions between the Hillary and Obama camps in the past week must surely benefit Obama, that's a bit of a dissapointment.
That's not the end of it. Although the topline numbers are very stable, the crosstabs of preferences among black and white voters are not. The electorate is evenly split between the two groups, so if you look at the numbers for each group, you're looking at samples half the size of the overall numbers, and of course that does double the risks in interpreting the numbers. Nevertheless, compared to the stability of the topline numbers, these numbers look striking:
(I have no numbers by race on the Rasmussen poll of 1/9.)
First things first:
- Among African-American voters, Obama is now the clear favourite. He led Hillary in all the January polls. And this has not always been the case. In at least one poll from early December, the two candidates were still neck-and-neck, and back last summer Hillary was comfortably leading Barack among black voters here.
- Hillary does retain a significant support base among African-Americans in SC: roughly a quarter to a third of them still prefer her. That's more than you can say for John Edwards, whose support among blacks is in the single digits.
- Among white voters, the candidates are closer to each other in support. Hillary does have an edge in all but one poll, but the margins are smaller. And it's a three-way race here between Clinton, Obama and Edwards.
Then the thing that caught my eye and worries me a bit:
- In the first three polls, the three candidates were close to neck-and-neck among whites. In the Rasmussen and IA polls, they were all bunched up at 26-32% each. In the Survey USA poll Hillary had a lead of about 10 points, with Obama and Edwards running equal.
- Follows a four-day break from polling, and two new polls done in the middle of the to-and-fro about race between Hillary and Obama show significantly different results. Suddenly Hillary leads Edwards by 10 - and Obama by 20. Obama's support among whites is no longer 27-31%, but noticeably lower at 19-21%. Hillary (30-38% becomes 40-42%) and Edwards (26-29% becomes 30-31%) appear to benefit.
- Of course, not just are the subsamples small, but you're also comparing apples and oranges if you compare the numbers from different pollsters. But from one Rasmussen poll to the next we see the same thing: Obama's support among whites drops from 27% to 21%, while Hillary's increases from 32% to 40%.
- Among black voters there is no such apparent pattern in the volatility.
. OK, I'm joking. Well, sort of... :wink: 
