Poll roundup: Clinton loses her grip on Pennsylvania

For the first three weeks of the Pennsylvania campaign, Hillary Clinton not only maintained but even slightly expended her lead. But since then, it has been Ohio and Texas all over again: Poll after poll show the race tightening. And though there has only been one survey for now showing Obama with the lead, ARG released one this morning showing a tie between the two Democrats:

• Clinton and Obama both come in with 45%. Clinton's 16% edge among white voters is offset by Obama's 89% among back voters.
• ARG's previous poll released late March showed Clinton ahead 51% to 39%, a quite dramatic drop within two weeks.

Needless to say Clinton needs to win Pennsylvania to even stay in the race until the next context, let alone have any chance of taking the nomination. An Obama victory in the Keystone state would at once undermine many of Hillary's central arguments, in particular that Obama is too weak among key groups (registered Democrats, blue-collar voters) to be competitive in the general and that the late campaign is favoring Clinton with voters coming to realize they prefer her.

Do not write off Clinton's chances in Pennsylvania, of course. In the run-up to Ohio, I explained that the fact that we were talking about who would win that contest already meant Clinton would lose since she didn't need to just win Ohio but get a double-digit victory. But when all was said and done Hillary pulled out a 10% win. The trouble for her is that she needs even more than that in Pennsylvania to truly make her points, so if polls confirm that there now is a serious contest for the win rather than for the margin it is hard to see how Clinton can recover.

Meanwhile, two North Carolina polls suggest that the state's giving itself to Obama by a massive margin (Rasmussen suggested 23% yesterday) is not a foregone conclusion:

• McClatchy shows Obama leading comfortably, 45% to 36%. 20% of Clinton supporters (shall we say "only 20%" at this point?) said they would vote for McCain if their candidate did not get the nomination.

• Meanwhile, a Raleigh Observer poll was also realeased showing Obama ahead 32% to 26% -- as you can see undecideds were really not push by the pollster here.
  

North Carolina's primary seems to be the type of contest Clinton needs in Pennsylvania, one in which what is at stake is the margin without much suspense about the winner. Polls are showing an Obama victory anywhere from high-single digits to the 20% range. Even if Clinton is alive to fight on May 6th and even if she gets satisfying results in Indiana, she needs to make sure to cut her losses in North Carolina -- and she particularly needs to focus on winning the blue-collar white vote, the loss of which would undercut her central electability argument.

Finally, Rasmussen released two general election polls yesterday showing mixed results for both parties -- but mainly underscoring John McCain's strength:

• In Iowa, one of the rare states in which there is a consistent electability difference between the Democrats, Obama edges out McCain 46% to 42%, but the Republican crushes Clinton 51% to 36%.
• In Tennessee, however, it is Clinton who looks stronger, though both Democrats are trounced by McCain: Clinton is led 52% to 38% and Obama 58% to 31%.

Iowa will likely be one of the most important battlegrounds of the fall campaign after it handed George Bush a very narrow victory in 2004; Tennessee is less important in the logic of a general election campaign given that it did not even win for Al Gore in 2000. Let's note, however, that past polls showed that Tennessee could be in play: A survey in late February showed Clinton trailing McCain by only 4%, while Obama was crushed by 16%; an even earlier poll back in November showed tighter margins for both Democrats.