Three new polls today, each of them interesting in their own respects.
Just when you thought it was safe to use the word “Pennsylvania” without using the word “polling” in the same sentence, Rasmussen has a new, post-primary survey out in Pennsylvania that shows Hillary Clinton leading John McCain by 5 points, but Barack Obama trailing him by 1 point. Bolstering Clinton’s electability arguments, The Pennsylvania polls have somewhat consistently shown her outperforming Barack Obama in the state, usually by margins of about 3-6 points. What’s interesting is the question of whether the Democrats left Pennsylvania in a better place than they found it. Strategic Vision showed consistent deterioration in the Democrats’ numbers over time, whereas Rasmussen’s previous poll of the state, conducted 4/9, showed Clinton and Obama with 9 and 8 point leads, respectively.
Rasmussen also has new numbers from Massachusetts, Obama +12, Clinton +19. This is actually the first Massachusetts poll to show Obama with a double-digit advantage in the state, as SurveyUSA’s fieldwork had consistently shown a tight race between he and McCain. Since Massachusetts has such strong Democratic voter ID (although it also has large numbers of independents), this may be a consequence of support tending to get more partisan over time.
Finally, in Oklahoma, a somewhat dated Sooner Poll shows John McCain ahead of both Democrats by enormous margins: Obama by 41 points and Clinton by 30. We are working on more detailed versions of our regression model to help explain why, for instance, the Democrats can be competitive in Indiana, but are losing Oklahoma by such wide margins.
Also, the Gallup daily tracker shows further, post-Pennsylvania movement toward Clinton, somewhat defying my prediction from yesterday. The Rasmussen daily tracker, however, is unbudging.