Sunday polls: Ohio and Texas are too close too call

A new series of poll confirms that both Ohio and Texas are too close to call at this point. That is in and of itself a huge victory for Barack Obama, as it seems guaranteed that, even if Clinton wins both states, she will not do so by significant margins and fail to cut into Obama's delegate lead. And given how dire her delegate situation is, that could mark the end of her campaign. In other words, Ohio and Texas are both too close to call when we ask who will win them, but the Illinois Senator is at least 8-10% above where he has to be.

Zogby, MSNBC/McClatchy and ARG all released two polls, with sensibly similar results

• In Ohio, MSNBC shows Clinton ahead 47% to 43%. The pollster adds that the NAFTA issue does not seem to be helping either candidate.
• Zogby's tracking poll shows the slightest of upticks for the New York Senator, who edges out Obama 47% to 46% after the two were tied at 45% yesterday.
• Finally, ARG also shows a slight improvement for Clinton, who is up 51% to 44% (she was up 5% two days ago).


• In Texas, MSNBC shows Obama edging out Clinton 46% to 45%. Hispanics are voting for Clinton 2:1 and black voters are going for Obama 86% to 6%. It looks like the proportion of each group in the final electorate will be decisive in deciding who comes out with the win.
• ARG shows very good movement for Clinton in this state, as she closes a 7% gap to tie Obama at 47%. They have been a couple of polls in recent days showing slight Clinton movement in Texas.
• Zogby was one of them yesterday, but now rolls back Clinton's progress, as she is back down 4%, 47% to 43%.

Considering that the Texas primary will be followed by caucuses -- which appear to have never been called at all -- we might be in for a long night in Texas.

Update: Well, just when polls were looking like they were in agreement, the Columbus Dispatch has released a poll with Clinton up 56% to 42%, the kind of margin she had 10 days ago. Now polls are not disagreeing over who will win Tuesday states but also about whether she can win this big! However, there are two huge caveats: (1) The Columbus-Dispatch poll is (in)famously a mail-in poll, in which readers have to return slips, a methodology often criticized. (2) The responses came in from February 21 to February 29th... a very large time window at a tie where Obama was making major inroads and cutting into Clinton's lead.