Guam votes, and polls show suspensful run-up to May 6th

Neither candidates is willing to let any delegate go uncontested and Guam's 4 pledged delegates and 2 superdelegates have suddenly become very important in the race for the nomination. Guam is held its caucuses today and the vote counting is now under way, with Obama holding a lead as of 2am Guam time, 760 votes to 680 votes. Guam voters will also elect the chairman and vice-chairman of the Guam Democratic Party, and those two figures will be superdelegates. The allegiance of some of the candidates are known (2 favor Clinton, 1 Obama and 3 are undecided) and early results suggest that the ticket containing the Obama endorsee is heading for a win. [Update: As of 4am Guam time and 15 districts reporting out of 21, Obama is leading with 54% and the pledged delegates are likely to be split 2-2. Guam's most populous district has not yet been counted, so the Clinton campaign still has some hope.]

Meanwhile, polling continues to suggest a suspenseful run-up to May 6th as it is unclear whether either candidate will get the type of lead they need to meaningfully impact the race:

• Zogby's tracking poll finds an uncharacteristically big swing in North Carolina. Yesterday, Zogby had Obama up 16%. Today, the margin is back to what we have been seeing from other polls, with Clinton trailing by 9%, 46% to 37%.

• In Indiana, however, Zogby once again finds the race to be a toss-up, with Obama edging out Clinton 43% to 42% -- this puts Zogby at odds with other pollsters, with LA Times/Bloomberg the last poll showing Obama in the lead.

• Finally, I missed the Insider Advantage poll from Indiana yesterday; it shows Clinton leading 47% to 40%. For those of you keeping score, there is remarkable consistency on this 7% margin (Insider Advantage, Mason-Dixon, Downs Center, Research 2000).

None of these results are particularly satisfying for either candidate, as Clinton needs more than a 7% lead in Indiana to give superdelegates pause; in North Carolina, Hillary's rise occured a bit too early for her own good as expectations have now shifted away from a devastating Obama victory to whether he can win in double-digits. There is even some discussion as to whether Clinton could win North Carolina. In fact, North Carolina has become the mirror image of Pennsylvania: The front-runner has a large lead to begin with, stumbles to single-digits with one or two polls showing the opponent actually in the lead. On April 22nd, Clinton barely won the expectations game, though a 9% victory would have seemed unsatisfying just three weeks earlier. Will the same happen in North Carolina?

Finally, Rasmussen released the first non-SUSA poll from Oregon today:

• Obama is in the lead, 51% to 39%. SUSA's poll released on Thursday found Obama leading by a slimmer 6%.

Oregon votes on May 20th, the same day as Kentucky. If she is still in the race by then, Clinton can count on a huge advantage in that state, so Obama will need whatever he can get on that day to change the conversation and avoid a very tough end of May.