The Democratic primary is on the verge of fundamentally changing. After his fantastic fundraising report, Barack Obama is now within inches of Clinton in national polls.
From Gallup:
Leading presidential candidates in both parties lost ground in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The most dramatic shift: newcomer Barack Obama has closed to within 5 points of Hillary Clinton.
The former first lady was the choice of 31% of Democrats and Democratic leaners in the national poll, taken Friday through Sunday. That's down from 38% at the beginning of April. Obama, meanwhile, jumped from 19% early in the month to 26% in the new poll.
The six national polls that were taken after Obama's initial fundraising announcement
now show an extremely close race:
Obama vs. Clinton, six poll mean, 4/5-4/15, three polls with Gore
Clinton: 33.5%
Obama: 25.8%
I will produce the mean without Gore, as well as the numbers for Edwards, as soon as Gallup makes those numbers available.
Now, a gap of 7.7% might not seem like "an extremely close race" on the surface, especially when it is averaged across six polls. However, the 7.7% advantage is, I still firmly believe, inflated (see
here,
here and
here). Further, this is closer than the campaign has ever been, and the post-fundraising trend clearly favors Obama. Right now, Clinton's national lead is quite narrow,
if it even still exists.
Obama's post-fundraising announcement bump could easily self-generate into further bumps. The best explanation I have seen for Obama's post-fundraising announcement polling rise has been that by raising more money than Clinton, a substantially increased number of rank and file Democrats believe Obama has a legitimate chance to win the nomination. Many people don't like supporting candidates who don't seem like they have a good chance to win, but Obama's huge fundraising ability makes it seem like he has a good chance to win and that Clinton is no longer inevitable. This problem is compounded for Clinton when Obama rises in the polls, because having more money and being close in the polls will rightly cause even more people to believe that Obama has a good chance to win. Further, this second bump might even cause more Clinton supporters to defect, as she no longer has the same winning aura she once had. Thus, a vicious cycle can start to form for the Clinton campaign, with the end result potentially being Obama stealing the frontrunner mantle. And that could happen in just a matter of two or three weeks.
The important thing for Obama supporters to keep in mind during all of this is that the campaign could just as quickly shoot back in the other direction. We saw numerous shifts in the final six months of the 2004 nomination campaign, and we have already seen several major shifts so far in the 2008 nomination campaign. Just because Obama takes the lead does not means he becomes inevitable. In reality, all it guarantees is that he becomes more of a target, ala Howard Dean. While
Obama is viewed more favorably than any other candidate right now, that could change in a hurry once the right wing noise machine changes its target priorities.
Still, I am sensing a major shift in the fundamental nature of this campaign. With only two or three more points in national polls, Obama becomes the man to beat. It may not happen, and we might instead just come right up to the edge of a major change before reverting back to something approaching normalcy. We will have to see.
