I still believe that Obama probably does much better relative to Clinton among voters who are paying very close, or somewhat close, attention to the campaign than among voters who are not paying much attention at all.

The NBC poll backs this up. From the Today show this morning:

RUSSERT: Well, it's quite interesting, Meredith, looking at those numbers. You see Senator Obama has cut Senator Clinton's lead in half in just one month. And if you go inside the numbers, people who are watching this race "very closely," quote, unquote, Obama is actually ahead 38-to-31.

Although Pew does not offer crosstabs to prove this, I still believe that Obama probably does much better relative to Clinton among voters who are paying very close, or somewhat close, attention to the campaign than among voters who are not paying much attention at all.

The WSJ/NBC poll from yesterday has strong evidence to support this conclusion.  Clinton leads Obama in Dem primary voters 35-31, but Obama leads Clinton 38-31 in Dem primary voters paying close attention.  This was overlooked because it's not in the articles or published PDF...they only reported it on NBC News last night.

Very interesting.

Some of the Obama-supporting demographics are more likely to  attend caucus or primaries: Higher income, Higher education. Clinton's has an big advantage among High School educated, but that demographic is much less likely to vote. The least likely voters are from the combination of young & HS.

Clinton's advantage remains with the older voters who are more likely to attend caucus or primary.

Are younger voters angry enough or politicized enough to decide to participate more than they have done in the past?  If Obama's strength is younger, better educated voters, then a goo strategy would be to get them registered and voting.

Too bad the Republicans didn't push for a draft!

...Clinton will almost certainly win New York.

Way, way, way too early be saying this about the performance of Clinton or any other candidate in New York or any other state.

On the candidates and on the polls, analyze away, but please -- please -- resist every temptation to feed the beast of inevitability about how voters in any state are going to respond to any candidate on that state's actual primary or general election day.

We are still nearly 9 months out from the first primary; and this is still a democracy.

Some 2/5 states may be like CA, where on the day of the primary a person who has declined to state can pick the ballot of one party.  (At least I think that's how we still do it).

The cross-tabs certainly bear out Claire McCaskill's statement last year (New Yorker article) that midwesterners don't like Hillary C.  But they do like Obama. Is it because he has the cadences of a midwesterner from his grandparents and has lived there so long?  Is it because people in Iowa are paying attention and people in IL know him?  Or is it antipathy to Hillary, as McCaskill seemed to suggest?  Whatever, that is a really interesting dynamic, obviously unrelated to simple things like race or gender per se.

And how did Edwards get to be the candidate of rich white older people?

That little bit of snark aside, your analysis seems to be spot on.

Very important that in NH independants can vote in either the GOP or Dem primary. They tend to go to where the action is (the Dems this cycle).

At this point, the most interesting I think in these polls is Clinton's lead among African Americans.   I seriously doubt that she will maintain this.  

More importantly, though, is that between the two of them they split 82% of the vote.  Neither Gore nor Edwards are in double figures.  For Edwards this is a continuation of a trend in 2004.   Historically southerners have done better than northerners among African Americans (Carter, Clinton).  This trend reversed in '04, where Kerry beat Edwards by larger margins among blacks than Whites. Only in South Carolina did Edwards beat Kerry in '04.  

For Edwards in particular, his failure to make significant inroads among African Americans represents his greatest single weakness - a weakness that I would argue will prove decisive if not reversed.

One thing that surprises me after my first glance at the chart is, Edwards doing poorly among progressive/liberal...Now, did i miss something here??...How is it that Hillary and Obama crushing him amongs liberal??...Edwards constantly polls great in the blogs because the blogs seems to be very liberal and i really thought that progressive/liberal would be his base.

Edwards definitely made the hard left to get this group on his side and apologized for his war vote...Could it be that because of his war vote, people(progressive/liberal) are still skeptical of his anti-war credential

The country, at large, does not see John Edwards as being "Presidential".  That is the reality.  He needs to work on his image, even if it means moving the wife off-stage and getting rid of the blue jeans.  We want our First Lady to be just a tad elusive and not always the one who introduces her candidate husband.  I live in NYC and I am always talking politics and when I ask total strangers about John Edwards the response is always the same -- we can't take him seriously.  He doesn't look or act "official" enough to run the country.  And ten different versions of this same message.

Enough with the folksy stuff.  Edwards needs to look like the executive; and so far, he just doesn't.  

Take Gore out and I would be willing to bet Edwards' numbers go way up, by more than the other two go up.  Gore seems to be a repository of "not Clinton" votes.

And samueldem, your concern is noted.  Thanks for suggesting that Elizabeth should be shuffled aside to make John look better, but I have never heard any such statement about either Edwards. He's not serious?  Would that be why half the country voted for him for Vice President in 2004?

You remind me of the New Yorker who couldn't believe Reagan beat Carter because "nobody she knew voted for Reagan."

Take a look at the most recent MSNBC poll:

Among Democrats, the tally now is Clinton 32, Obama 31, Edwards 20.  All others are in single digits, and Edwards has moved up 5 points this month (Obama 3).  

Clearly, this is a three-way race between three serious contenders with disparate strengths.  And whatever she is, Elizabeth is definitely a strength for Edwards.

because if she doesn't she would win a single primary in the race and would be irrelevant. New York will merit little media attention unlike California and the others.

Do you see what I see? Look at the education levels on Obama and Hillary supporters.

Nuff said.

;p

IF Hillary doesn't win Iowa does anyone really think she can win New Hmapshire with all the independants participating? Now that rudy had gone hard right it also hurts Hillary in New Hampshire because she would rather have New Hampshires large civic minded but indepenadant primary voters vote for Rudy. McCain's New Hampshire sucess also doomed Bill Bradley in the state as many independants might have voted for the "outsider" against Gore.

I dont really understand your point Chris, which you believe casts doubt on your "Inflated Clinton Poll Theory"

My understanding of your original theory is this: (1) Hillary currently leads Barack in polls among Democratic Voters; however (2) the actual universe of voters at a caucus or primary are much much smaller then the universe described in number 1; (3) The gap between Obama and HRC among this smaller universe of voters is much closer then among the larger group; therefore (4) poll results taken among the broad group of Democrats "inflate" how well HRC will actually do in the primaries and caucuses.

Now, if I understand you, you are saying the fact that Obama does better among Democratic leading INDEPENDANTS and these individuals cant vote in many of the Democratic primaries and caucuses somehow casts doubt on your "Inflated Clinton Poll Theory?"  Yet, I dont think you are thinking this through correctly.  The fact that Democratic leaning Independants may or may not be able to vote in the Democratic state contests has NOTHING to do with the Inflated Clinton Poll Theory.

My understanding is that the polls that you have called inflated are taken among REGISTERED DEMOCRATS and do not include Democratic leaning Independants.  So, your theory is still actually true.  The problem still is that the universe being polled (a cross sample of all DEMOCRATS) are-at least at present-exhibiting different voting preferences then the discrete group of DEMOCRATS who will vote in the primaries.  Democratic leaning independants do not factor into this equation at all.

Now all MY analysis is based on the idea that Democratic leaning Independants are not questioned for polls of just the Democratic candidates competing against each other that you have identified as inflating Clinton's support.  If that is wrong and there are a lot of Democratic leaning Independant voters in these polls that are more likely to support Obama then Clinton but these voters will not be able to vote, then you are probably right, your theory is screwed.  Still, my impression has always been that the "horse race" polling done of the Democrats vs each other only poll registered Democrats.  So again, if that is the case, the Independants are irrelevant to your theory.

Clinton does much better among older voters, and they disproportionately vote.  Obama does much better among younger votes, and they disproportionately don't vote.  There goes your theory (at least as far as primaries go; not so sure about caucuses).