Stop the presses! The very latest polling data from California indicates a sharp trend for Barack Obama and against Hillary Clinton. Preliminary indications in other states are that the trend is very widespread and not just concentrated on the West Coast.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen’s three-day tracking survey, conducted on Jan. 28-30, shows Hillary with a bare and dwindling three-point lead over Obama in California. He has Hillary at 43 percent, Obama at 40 percent and John Edwards (two of the three days were before he dropped out) at 9 percent. This data compares with a 20-point-plus Hillary margin in most polls in California just a few weeks ago.
Other polls have Obama winning Georgia (O-52 H-36) and Alabama (O-40 H-35), with their sizable minority populations, but also very close in Massachusetts, trailing there by only H-43 O-37 and in Montana by only H-40 O-33. National polls also indicate a sharp closing of the race. Gallup has Hillary just six ahead and Rasmussen’s national data is even closer.
Edwards’s withdrawal will help Obama in all likelihood and, with these poll numbers, he is more likely to endorse Obama.
But there could be a wrinkle. In most states, most of the delegates are awarded by congressional district, where the two slates compete and the one with the most votes wins all the delegates from that district. Even if Obama were to carry California by, say, 53-47, he might win the black districts by 80-20 and lose most or all of the white districts, giving Hillary the vast bulk of the delegates. Obama would have to get his margin of victory up to eight to 10 points to be sure of sweeping the delegates in a given state.
Yet, when all is said and done, the trend lines for Obama are unbelievably positive just a few days before Super Tuesday.
On the Republican side, John McCain looks like a done deal. He is beating Mitt Romney in all five states with recent polls, winning California by 32-28, Illinois by 34-26, Georgia by 35-24 and Tennessee by 33-25. Mike Huckabee is in second place in Tennessee with Romney running last.