Get yer polls, bets, numbers & pretty graphs! Elections 2008

Hillary Clinton cries in Connecticut
Posted at 10:30 AM

by Jason George

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up this morning at an event at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked while in law school in the early 1970s.

A doctor, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up, leading Clinton's eyes to fill with tears, which she wiped out of her left eye. At the time, the doctor was saying how proud he was that sheepskin-coat, bell-bottom-wearing young woman he met in 1972 was now running for president.

"Well, I said I would not tear up; already we're not exactly on the path," Clinton said with emotion after the introduction.

<represses>

<hoping>

I didn't see anything about the new Field poll here, forgive me if I'm duplicating. Plus just one poll. But some wowie stuff in it:

Quote:

A startling surge of support for Barack Obama has catapulted the Illinois senator into a virtual tie with Hillary Rodham Clinton in California's Democratic presidential primary, a Field Poll released Saturday shows.

CALIFORNIA'S PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY STRONG LATE SURGE FOR OBAMA. TRAILS CLINTON BY JUST TWO POINTS. McCAIN LEADS ROMNEY BY EIGHT POINTS IN THE GOP PRIMARY.

Registered Democrats, who the poll finds are accounting for 87% of those likely to vote in the Democratic primary, favor Clinton by six points, 37% to 31%. However, non-partisans who represent another 13% of likely Democratic primary voters now favor Obama by a five to three margin (54% to 32%). [..]

Los Angeles County voters favor Clinton 42% to 34%. By contrast, voters in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area support Obama 41% to 31%.

There is also a marked gender gap in preferences. Men now support Obama 44% to 31%, while women, who represent 56% of likely Democratic primary voters, favor Clinton 40% to 27%.

Clinton and Obama are dividing the vote of white non-Hispanics evenly (35% each). Latinos, who represent 20% of the likely Democratic electorate, prefer Clinton overwhelmingly (52% to 19%). African-Americans, who comprise a smaller 12% share of the likely Democratic primary voters, support Obama over Clinton 55% to 19%.

Obama holds the lead among younger voters under age 30 (42% to 31%). [..] Clinton, however, is favored by seniors age 65 and over by a greater than two to one margin (40% to 18%).

There is strong support for Obama among liberals (42% to 31%), while the less numerous conservatives are solidly behind Clinton (43% to 23%). Clinton has a small edge among moderate or middle-of-the-road voters (39% to 33%).

Among those who have a high school education or less, sentiment is very much in Clinton's favor - 44% to Obama's 19%. Those who have some college or trade school are evenly divided between the two candidates. College graduates are narrowly for Obama 39% to 35%, while those who have completed post-graduate work are supporting Obama by a larger 42% to 31% margin.

Voters living in households with annual incomes of less than $40,000, as well as those making between $40,000 and $80,000, are supporting Clinton by ten to eleven point margins. However, those living in households whose annual income is more than $80,000 favor Obama 45% to 32%.

McCain's current eight-point lead over Romney in the GOP primary is attributable to his exceptionally strong support from Republicans who classify themselves as moderately conservative or moderate in politics. Among this group, who account for about half of all likely GOP voters (51%), McCain is preferred by a greater than two to one margin (39% to 16%). By contrast, McCain trails Romney by eight points among strong conservatives (25% to 33%).

McCain holds significant leads across most other Republican sub-groups. One exception is among born-again Christians, where McCain is in a virtual tie with Huckabee (McCain 28% vs. 26% for Huckabee). Romney is running a close third among this segment, with 21% of the vote. [..]

[This should work in favour of McCain:] The Republican delegate allocation is different and is based on a "winner-take-all" allocation method, with about 90% of the delegates allocated by CD. Each district, no matter what its number of GOP voters, has three delegates at stake. This means the voting preferences of the relatively small proportion of GOP voters in heavily Democratic districts will matter as much as a district that is heavily Republican. Because of this, it is quite possible that the overall popular vote statewide may not correspond to a candidate's distribution of delegates to the Republican National Convention. [..]

In both major party races, there are also unusually large proportions of voters - 18% in the Democratic primary and 15% in the Republican - who were undecided in the final days of the campaign. [..]

There is another aspect to the Democratic primary findings that is unique and where there is not much precedence in previous presidential elections. It is the group of non-partisans who say they will vote in the Democratic primary. These voters have candidate preferences that counter those of registered Democrats. The relative size of each eventual voting bloc, therefore, will have a major impact on the outcome.

Further, there are unusually large differences in candidate preferences among some of the standard voter sub-groups of each party. To pose just one example from each of the Democratic and Republican contests: (1) the large divisions in support between men and women voters in the Democratic primary, and (2) the big split in preferences between strong conservatives and Republicans who are not strong conservatives. In each of these examples, it would not take large changes in voter turnout proportions from those shown in this report to produce a very different election outcome.

nimh wrote:

<represses>

<hoping>

Why repress, Nimh? Listen to your heart. And your brain.

And the vast majority of Hillary's online supporters are women.

Thank you Nihm for the time and effort you are putting into this thread. Collecting the research polls and doing some basic analysis is helpful in tracking the ever shifting dynamic of public opinion. Your analysis tends to be balanced and objective. I find myself visiting this thread on a regular basis, though I have reservations about popularity polls in general. Thanks again.

The Field press release on this poll is a very good read:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

nimh wrote:

<represses>

<hoping>

Why repress, Nimh? Listen to your heart. And your brain.

Oh it's what I really thought for sure! But I was jokily invoking Soz's preceding post :wink:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And the vast majority of Hillary's online supporters are women.

And Obama draws vastly disproportionally support among men. Why must it automatically be reprehensible ID politics if women veer towards Hillary, but not particularly noteworthy that men veer towards Obama? (At least, I dont hear you much about that..)

I bet that there's a hefty chunk of instinctive gender-based response in how men veer away from Hillary as well..

Not again. Please tell me that Obama rescued some puppies on camera today to counter this tactic.

Here's the Gallup poll showing a shrinking gap (one poll but the one I remembered):