I have been relegating single national polls to Breaking Blue, but so many have come out in the last two days that it seems to justify a front-page post. For example, both
CBS and
Time have conducted national trial heats that only include Clinton, Obama and Edwards in the questioning:
Three-way national polling
| Poll, Date |
CBS, 3/27 |
Time, 3/28 |
Time, 3/12 |
| Clinton |
36% |
38% |
42% |
| Obama |
28% |
30% |
31% |
| Edwards |
18% |
26% |
17% |
National polls are sketchy to begin with, but these two polls commit the third of the three types of classic national trial heat blunders:
- Pushing undecideds too hard;
- Including candidates who are not running;
- Not including candidates who are running (check).
Still, even with this flaw, the polls do show something of a pro-Edwards trend, where he has moved out of the low teens and probably into the high teens when all candidates are included. Clearly, this is as a result of the announcement that Elizabeth has cancer. The big question for Edwards is whether this bounce represents a more or less permanent lift into the high teens or low twenties, or if this is a temporary sympathy bounce. Others have noted that Obama has leveled off, but I'll wait another at least two weeks before agreeing with those assessments. Even if he has leveled off, it could easily be spun as solidifying his large February and March gains, which is hardly a negative considering how long we have left. As far as Clinton is concerned, she seems quite stable in the mid to high thirties range, as long as undecideds are not pushed (at which point so goes over 40%).
Opinion Dynamics also has a new poll out today. While it does have second place choices, it has not yet released results without Gore (they clearly have them, since they conducted second place choices, so I don't understand the hold-up). I would report on the poll more, but it occurs to me that the way Fox News uses a legitimate polling outfit such as Opinion Dynamics is almost precisely the same way they are using the CBC. A reputable pollster usually conducts polls for Fox in a professional manner, but occasionally Fox will stick in a ridiculously loaded question as a means of furthering their agenda. Thus, Fox is first seen as a legitimate news outlet for conducting solid, scientific polls, and then later on is able to use that perceived legitimacy as a means of giving more weight to their propaganda. In short, because of this, do not expect me to report much on Fox News polls in the future.
Apart from primary trial heats, another interesting development is how Obama continues to gain on Giuliani in head-to-head general election trial heats. He has been within the margin of error for some time, but the only two polls taken in late March (Time and Fox) show him down by an average of only one point. If Obama starts to pull ahead of Giuliani in trial heats, then look out. He already performs better, though only slightly, against the entire Republican field than any other Democrat. It really is too bad that, as The Politico, Nedra Pickler, James Carville and other center-right establishment types tell us, Obama's "inexperience" and "fluff" make him unelectable. Off-hand, and I write this as someone who donated $50 to John Edwards today (and $50 to Michael Nutter, and $10 a month for 18 months to the Progressive Patriots Fund--I did my Q1 donations today), I would have thought that the candidate who does best against Republicans, who has the highest favorable / unfavorable ratio of all Democrats, and who has the most people-powered activism behind him, is the most "electable." Oh yeah, and he has spent more time in elected office than either Edwards or Clinton, too. Unfortunately, the establishment has spoken, and "electability" will once again have nothing to do with actual facts until, over the next few months, the fact-less "electability" narrative ends up bending public opinion to its will.
