As eyes turn to upcoming contests, Clinton looks like she could rebound

Facing the prospect of losing two more contests next Tuesday when Wisconsin and Hawaii go to the polls, Hillary Clinton appears to have decided to make an effort in Wisconsin. She installed Teresa Vilmain, who ran her Iowa campaign, to organize Wisconsin and she is planning on spending four days in Wisconsin starting on Saturday.

It is unclear whether the campaign thinks it can win in Wisconsin, but they have clearly realized that they cannot afford another 20+ loss, both because of the momentum it would give Obama in a two-week period with no elections and because the delegate lead would just keep widening. Polls suggest that Obama is narrowly ahead, but that Clinton is poised to keep this one close:

• A new Rasmussen poll released this morning shows Obama leading 47% to 43%, up 23% among men and trailing 10% among women.

Balancing things in Wisconsin could allow Clinton to stay afloat in the final two weeks leading up to March 4th (and its two debates), and preserve her lead going into Ohio. The one public poll of the race for now suggested that she had a 17% lead, and two new surveys out this morning confirm the size of Clinton's lead right now:

• Rasmussen has Clinton up 14%, 51% to 37%, boosted by a large lead among women.
• Quinnipiac is even more favorable to Hillary, showing her to be ahead 55% to 21%. Obama is trailing by 26% among white men here, a constituency that has been looking better for him in other states.

The Quinnipiac poll was taken over the course of 6 days post-Super Tuesday, so it does not really incorporate the shifts that might have happened after Obama's latest string of victories, but Rasmussen's was in the field last night. Quinnipiac also released a poll from the Pennsylvania primary, which could prove decisive if Clinton survives March 4th. For now, she has an edge in PA too, leading 52% to 36%. Worth noting that both polls show huge educational gaps and racial gaps.

The challenge Clinton faces is that she cannot just narrowly win the three big contests that are coming up (OH, PA and TX), she needs to do so decisively to cut into Obama's delegate lead. She has not gotten that kind of margin anywhere but New York and Arkansas and, to some degree, in California, where her unexpectedly strong showing gave her an edge of more than 40 delegates. The good news for Hillary is that the events of the past few months have not made her fall in Ohio yet. A 14%+ victory there, if she can also pull off Texas, would surely give her enough momentum to continue and make a renewed case for Florida and Michigan.

• General election
  

In conjunction with the primary polls I just mentionned, Quinnipiac also released general election polls in PA, OH and FL, three of the hottest swing states of 2008. All three states are close, confirming that they will once again decide this year's contest, and there is no clear electability difference between Obama and Clinton. If anything, she runs narrowly better than him, especially in Pennsylvania:

• Against Clinton, McCain leads 44% to 42% in Florida, 44% to 43% in Ohio. He trails 46% to 40% in Pennsylvania.
• Against Obama, McCain leads 41% to 39% in Florida, 42% to 40% in Ohio and trails 42% to 41% in Pennsylvania.

In all three of these states, Clinton runs significantly better than Obama among registered Democrats -- 15% better in Pennsylvania. And that is not a weakness Obama can necessarily rectify easily as time goes by, as McCain has shown capacity in appealing to moderate Democrats, a group that is not crossing-over if Clinton is their nominee. On the other hand, Obama runs stronger than she does among independents, and their respective weaknesses among indies and Dems offset each other. Now, McCain appeals to both of these groups. Clinton and Obama both defend one turf very well and are weak among the other. It is hard to imagine either doing well without the other group...