Zogby delivers its first tracking polls, contradicts the newly developing CW

The past few days were bringing increasingly good polling news for Hillary Clinton. Not only was she building a comfortable lead in Indiana but a number of polls suggested she was benefiting from a lot of movement in her favor in North Carolina, with Insider Advantage going as far as coming out with her leading by 2% -- a result that would have the potential of truly rocking the primary! But Zogby's first wave of tracking polls from IN and NC finds the race to be exactly where Obama wants it to be:

• In Indiana, Clinton and Obama are tied at 42%.
  
• In North Carolina, Obama has a large lead, 50% to 34%. Clinton is found with only a 10% lead among white voters (47% to 37%), a significant difference with other polls we have seen this week.

• Research 2000, meanwhile, finds the race to be closer in North Carolina, with Obama up in single-digits, 51% to 44%. This is the same margin Mason-Dixon came out with this afternoon.

Zogby's polls were conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, so they are the first surveys to potentially register the impact of Obama denouncing Wright; if so, it would bode well for Obama's hopes of putting the controversy behind him, at least until Tuesday. We will obviously need much more polling to confirm any such trend, and keep in mind that Zogby's track record has not been great over the past few months; though they nailed Pennsylvania, their tracking polls leading up to April 22nd had the state much tighter than other polls were suggesting. For now, let's take Zogby's polls as the Obama-end of the current polling spectrum, with Insider Advantage representing the Clinton-end; if the results do come in on the Obama-end and confirm Zogby's findings, Clinton would be in big trouble come Wednesday morning.

If Clinton does survive May 6th, she can look forward to West Virginia (on the 13th) and Kentucky (on the 20th); but she will also have to play a game "on the road" as Oregon, a state in which Obama is heavily favored, votes on the 20th as well. I have previously explained my sense that Clinton could keep Oregon much closer than people expect; it is a closed primary, after all, and people forget that Obama only won the Washington primary by about 5%. The only previous poll of the state, conducted by SUSA, showed Obama with a 10% lead. Three weeks later, SUSA strikes again and shows Clinton closing in on Obama:

• Obama is now leading 50% to 44%; he maintains a big lead among men, while Clinton is barely ahead among women. Also consider that Oregon is a state in which the Asian community could play a role -- and actually register as a statically meaningful group in the exit polls (Obama leads by 12% here, but the subgroup is too small).

Clinton is likely to get a great result in Kentucky; if Obama does not get a perception-changer in Oregon that same evening, he could be in trouble as the conversation would concentrate on his problems with white blue-collar voters (KY) rather than Clinton's weakness in the West.

Finally, let's conclude this second polling thread of the day with two national general election polls, as Pew and CNN, two reputed pollsters, both find Democrats leading all match-ups:

• CNN shows Obama leading McCain 49% to 45% while Clinton leads 49% to 44%.
• Pew finds Obama leading McCain 50% to 44% and Clinton leading 49% to 45%.
  
• Both polls have Obama edging out Clinton with a statistically insignificant lead (1% and 2% respectively) in a national primary match-up.

No electability comparison to be drawn by the numbers alone -- though the extent to which both Democrats get to similar final numbers by assembling very different voting coalitions is certainly remarkable (remember Gallup's finding that Clinton was losing among all educational groups with at least a college degree, while Obama losing all those without one... but they both ended up with the same results).