What To Expect In Pennsylvania Tonight

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

HORSERACE, BARACK OBAMA, HILLARY CLINTON

So I've been wrestling with what to expect this evening.

The polls are strangely uniform, almost all showing Hillary up mid-to-high single digits.

BUT Obama hasn't been higher than 44 in any of them except one (which had him winning the state overall, so it would seem to be an outlier). As I noted earlier, Obama hit a similar ceiling in Ohio. His totals in the last seven polls before the Ohio Democratic primary: 45, 42, 44, 42, 40, 44, 44. On primary day, Obama finished with 44.1 percent.

BUT there's a lot of newly-registered voters, and the belief is that Team Obama put the lion's share of the effort into finding and winning over these people. Because most pollsters screen out "first time voters" in their likely voter sample, polls might be underestimating Obama's support.

BUT there's Operation Chaos, Republican-leaning Rush Limbaugh listeners crossing over, registering as Democrats, and voting for Hillary. And because these people may or may not identify themselves as "Democrats" when a pollster calls up, polls may be underestimating this stockpile of Hillary voters.

BUT Obama hasn't been visibly seriously harmed by Jeremiah Wright or the "cling" comments.

BUT then again, maybe there's a Bradley or Wilder effect, and Pennsylvania Democrats aren't eager to tell a pollster that they're not voting for the charismatic black guy loved by the press.

BUT then again, there's early anecdotal evidence suggesting that Hillary's doing pretty well in the potentially record-setting turnout in Philadelphia.

My rational calculation is that we should see something akin to Ohio, a Hillary win in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 percent. But there's something strange about Obama's teflon these past couple weeks. A lot of Democrats have fallen for him, hard, and they don't want to see any new information about him that could force them to rethink their support of him. In each of the other "decisive" contests, where Hillary could have been knocked out — New Hampshire, California, and Ohio and Texas — the voters didn't want the contest to end. I can't help but wonder if Pennsylvanians are ready for this primary to be over.

My gut says much closer than we expect, Hillary by only four percent.

04/22 11:32 AM Share