Texas Primary Will Be a Wild Ride for Dems

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 9:18 AM on February 16, 2008.

Texas seems a confused place for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It might be trending Obama's way, though, and should do more of that trending when he wins in Wisconsin and Hawaii.

Maybe Hillary was right to campaign so hard there at the expense of Wisconsin. Two polls are out, and even the best one for Hillary Clinton only gives her a small edge in the vote. The other poll leans towards Obama, and I'm betting we'll see even more bandwagon jumping if Obama wins in Wisconsin (he's holding a 50-39 point lead as of a few days ago). Here's some internals from that poll in Texas that favors Hillary Clinton, from the statesman.com:

Now for the numbers, Democrats first:

Clinton was ahead 49 percent to 41 percent, with 8 percent undecided.

When asked their most important concern, Democratic voters chose the economy (28 percent), the situation in Iraq (17 percent) and health care (16 percent).

Democratic voters are happy with their candidates, with 75 percent having a favorable opinion of Clinton, and 71 percent approving of Obama. Unfavorables were 23 percent for Clinton, 24 percent for Obama.

Obama supporters liked his ability to foster change (43 percent) and electability (12 percent). Clinton supporters went for her experience (40 percent) and ability to bring change (14 percent).

Doesn't look like Hillary Clinton has blunted Obama's likability, and if the electorate in Texas catches on to this "change" thing, she's going to be sunk, again. Here's that other poll, also from the stateman.com:

Now, we have American Research Group out of New Hampshire, which flips the results, putting Obama up, 48 percent to 42 percent, in a Feb. 13-14 poll of 600 likely Democratic primary voters (4 percent margin of error). Seven percent of those polled were undecided.

The new poll attributes Obama's surge to self-described independents and Republicans who said they plan to vote in the Democratic primary. Those voters amounted to 22 percent of respondents and went for Obama almost 3-to-1. This is a demographic that helped fuel Obama wins in previous primaries, exit polls have shown.

Among Democrats, Clinton topped Obama 47 percent to 42 percent, the poll found.

The poll also found Obama winning with white voters (51 percent to 40 percent) and African Americans (76 to 17).

Clinton was the choice of Hispanics, but just barely, 44 percent to 42 percent.

I'm particularly impressed that Barack Obama seems to be leading among white voters. In fact, I'm encouraged by how close it seems among Hispanic voters. Still, this was a poll that included independents, and all those people have to register as Democrats to count. So what Barack Obama needs is some more momentum from Wisconsin and Hawaii. By many accounts, he's going to get it, especially if the independents in the electorate in Wisconsin think their vote matters far more in the Democratic rather than the Republican primary.

Want some "nuts and bolts" about how Obama can win in Texas? You can certainly do worse than the Burnt Orange Report. What that report says to me is that Hillary Clinton, who needs a big win to take a whole bunch of delegates, ain't going to get it

Tagged as: texas, wisconsin, obama, clinton

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone