Clinton adds a superdelegate and strong polls... but is even 10% enough?

Now in the final days of the Pennsylvania campaign, Hillary Clinton got the support of a superdelegate today, Ohio Representative Tom Ryan. This is her second endorsement from Ohio in as many days, as Rep. Betty Sutton endorsed her yesterday afternoon. This is quite an unexpected double-get considering how slowly Clinton has been amassing superdelegates since February 5th, especially when we add to this the 2 superdelegates she obtained on Thursday when the New Jersey Democratic Party settled on three of its add-ons/PLEOs.

However, Barack Obama also received some good superdelegate news lately when Maryland Governor O'Malley announced (contrary to most people's expectations) that he would schedule a special election in the vacant MD-04 district. The incumbent Democrat (an Obama endorsee) had announced he would resign after losing to Donna Edwards in the Democratic primary; it appeared that the seat would be left vacant for the rest of the year and that Obama would lose a convention vote. But O'Malley decided a special election would be held after all on June 17th, with the winner automatically becoming a superdelegate. Donna Edwards, the overwhelming favorite to win on June 17th, has already endorsed Obama.

Meanwhile, 3 new Pennsylvania polls released this afternoon bring good news to Hillary Clinton and confirm that a double-digit victory is within her reach on Tuesday. Notice, however, that her trendline is mostly negative:

• The fifth installment of Zogby's tracking poll finds the New York Senator leading 48% to 42%. Zogby adds that, in Sunday's polling sample alone, Clinton leads 53% to 38% and that this is due to more than a one-day anomaly, as undecideds are breaking towards her.
• You might remember that we discussed this morning Clinton's biggest potential to improve her numbers as her own base looks to be wavering more than Obama's, suggesting that she has more room to grow in the final 48 hours.
  

• The final ARG poll, meanwhile, shows Clinton leading by a solid 54% to 41%. The previous poll released last week showed her leading by 20% -- in a poll that was widely described as an outlier; their previous survey (the week before) showed a tie at 45%, so ARG has shown some pretty wild swings.
  
• ARG's internals show Obama trailing 2:1 among white voters and by 23% voters among voters with no college degree; if those numbers hold on Tuesday, except a new round of criticism as to Obama's electability problems.
  

• Strategic Vision, finally, finds a 47% to 40% Clinton lead, here again a slight tightening as she was ahead 49% to 40% in the previous poll.
  
• In the general election, Strategic Vision once again finds McCain beating both Democrats, 46% to 42% against Clinton and 48% to 40% against Obama.

• [I had included the final SUSA poll here, but it looks like that was a very old poll I somehow linked too. I apologize for that, this is what happens after this many primaries in this little time. We will probably get SUSA's final poll tomorrow.]
  

With less than 36 hours before the polls open in Pennsylvania, these are among the final polls we will be seeing and they suggest that we are in for a wild race to the finish and for Election Day suspense. Clinton has managed to remain favored to win and she has consistently led throughout the 6-week campaign -- something she had not managed to do in Ohio and Texas. This is an impressive feat in and of itself considering how close her opponent is to capturing the nomination. That Hillary is capable of maintaining her coalition under such conditions is remarkable.

The problem she faces on Tuesday, of course, is that she needs not only a win but a comfortable one. And on that point the polls are in disagreement and they are simply too many undecideds to really know what will happen. One thing that is certain, however, is that the "good result" that Clinton is aiming for is a double-digit victory. While there is no question that that would be a strong result, it is important to keep in mind that the Pennsylvania primary started with the presumption that Clinton would need a much bigger victory to keep herself relevant. After all, given her precarious position in the race, this is no longer a question of beating subjective expectations but of (1) achieving the very objective result of moving pledge delegate totals and (2) changing the fundamentals of the race.

Clinton's victories on March 4th were strong enough to keep her in the race but they fulfilled neither of these latter two conditions. A 10% victory in Pennsylvania would do just about the same thing; it would allow Clinton to pass a threshold of survival but without putting Obama's dominance seriously in danger.