First assesment of post-Super Tuesday contests

We got a few days of rest after the deluge of polls that marked the run-up to Super Tuesday; but with 7 states voting in the next few days, polls were bound to start coming in again. At a time most of us were expecting to relax a little in preparation for a grueling general election, there is still a lot to cover in the Clinton-Obama race.

Two polls from Virginia were released this afternoon and confirmed the conventional wisdom that the Potomac primary is ideally suited for Obama:

• First, a SUSA poll shows Barack Obama up a significant 59% to 39%. He is leading 87% to 12% among blacks -- which make 29% of the electorate -- and manages to tie Clinton among whites, at 49%.
• Obama's showing among both groups is particularly strong. He seems to be continually rising among African-Americans, and it is particularly important for Clinton to stay above 15% (which she did on Tuesday) to make sure she is viable in all districts.


• An Insider Advantage poll confirms SUSA's finding, showing Obama ahead 52% to 37%.


• SUSA also released a poll of the GOP race taken yesterday night -- after Romney's withdrawal -- and it shows McCain picking up most of Romney's votes and crushing Huckabee, 57% to 25%.

SUSA also released a poll from Maryland, which holds its primary the same day as Virginia:

• Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 52% to 33%. They are tied among women, but Obama leads among men by 37%! Furthermore, they are tied among whites (Clinton is up 42-40) but Obama leads 71% to 18% among black voters. 39% of the sample is African-American, underscoring the challenge Clinton faces on Tuesday.
• Among Republicans, there is more suspense for second-place than for first, as McCain is ahead of Huckabee 56% to 17%, with Paul in double-digits, at 10%.

Obama's victories in Virginia and Maryland are expected at this point, but that does not mean Clinton has nothing to lose here. She cannot afford a 20% loss yet again: Virginia allocates 101 delegates, and Clinton could wake up on Wednesday to find herself trailing widely in the pledged delegates count.

Virginia is particularly suited to Obama, and the margins he has opened up in these two polls is not surprising. A third of the state's Democratic electorate is African-American, and Obama has most of those voters in his camp. He does need a share of the white vote to prevail, but this is where Virginia is so good for Obama: Northern Virginia consists in the DC suburbs, and the electorate will not be as racially divided there as in other Southern states, ensuring that Obama gets a higher proportion of the white vote than he did in Georgia and Alabama. In other words, Virginia combines the high proportion of black voters of other Southern states without the extreme racial polarization that made Clinton run way ahead of Obama among white voters in places like Georgia.

In the GOP race, Virginia could very well be Huckabee's last stand. The former Governor prevailed in a number of Southern states on Super Tuesday, and he who lives by a Southern strategy dies by a Southern strategy. If Huckabee cannot win Virginia -- which is a very hard state for him to win given the growing prominence of moderate regions such as Fairfax -- it is unclear where he can win down the line.

Hillary Clinton did get some good -- and unexpected -- poll news today, from Wisconsin (which votes on February 19th). Keep in mind that this is the first poll from Wisconsin we have seen since December:

• An ARG poll of the race shows her ahead 50% to 41%. Clinton leads by 20% among registered Democrats, testifying to how much she is hurting in open primaries.

Fairly or unfairly, Wisonsin has been painted as a state Obama is expected to win. Obama's campaign itself did nothing to squash that conventional wisdom, admitting it was expecting to do well throughout the February primaries. The next few weeks will be all about "holding serve" -- Obama has to win the February states, with Clinton facing a do-or-die situation in Ohio and Texas on March 4th.

This ARG poll suggests the story is not that simple. If Clinton wins here, she would diminish the pressure of getting both Ohio and Texas and get at least a few good news cycle in the next few weeks. But the question she now faces is how much the coming Obama victories over the week-end and on Tuesday will affect the results of Wisconsin? Will the Potomac Primary give Obama a boost, or are wins there now so expected that they will leave the fundamental dynamics as is? The answer to these questions will mostly depend on the margins that open up on the 12th.

Finally, it's worth noting that itis not just Americans who are unable to decide between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. A poll conducted in France finds that the French are torn between the two as well... 38% say they would prefer that American Democrats choose Obama, 36% Clinton, with 26% undecideds (that's a lower rate of undecideds than in some polls we see over here).