April 04, 2008
Campaign SuperANOVA: The First Installment Of Our Weekly Poll Update
A new Diageo/Hotline poll released this a.m. shows Barack Obama leading Hillary Clinton among Dem primary voters by 12%, a striking turnaround from his 2% deficit in the Feb. survey.
The poll – taken 3/28-31 of 799 RVs with margin of error +/- 3.5% – also shows Obama leading Clinton among women by 4% and Hispanics by 5%. Obama continues to perform well among men (he has a 23% lead) and blacks (67% lead), but he trails among whites by 6%.
General Defection
In a general-election matchup, John McCain leads Clinton 50%-41%; in Feb., he was up 48%-40%. McCain and Clinton each maintain considerable leads among their respective party faithful, but against the former FLOTUS, McCain leads Inds by 32%. He also leads men by 17% and ties Clinton among women.
Meanwhile in a McCain-Obama matchup, McCain leads 46%-44% – within the margin of error but a shift from Obama’s 48-40% lead in Feb. Since the previous poll, McCain’s support among Dems has nearly doubled from 8% to 15%; at the same time, Obama’s lead among Dems has dropped from 76% to 53%. McCain also bests Obama by 12% among Inds, although no trend data is available for this group.
Interestingly, in a general-election matchup with McCain, Obama performs better than Clinton among women – he leads McCain by 5%, while McCain and Clinton break even, 45%-45%. Additionally, in a McCain-Obama matchup, Obama carries 94% of black votes, but in a McCain-Clinton matchup, just 74% vote Clinton. What happens to this 20% of blacks? At least 9% defect to McCain, and 6% remain undecided. Another 6% refuse to answer – perhaps they plan to stay home in the event Obama is not on the ballot in Nov.
Speaking of these “revenge voters” – the potential calamities of the divisive Dem primary – the Diageo/Hotline poll offers further evidence they exist. In the McCain-Clinton Nov. matchup, 19% of Obama primary voters opt for McCain, versus 14% of Dems overall. The damage is even more pronounced in a McCain-Obama matchup, 29% of Clinton voters select McCain, compared to 15% of Dems overall.
After the jump, Hotline poll guru Matthew Gottlieb examines the Clintons' unfavs as well as who has a better chance of winning the Nov. election (generic Dem or GOPer). He also writes that the economy has eclipsed Iraq as the top matter on voters' minds.
Are They In Your Fav Five?
One of the most remarkable statistics in the latest poll is the drop in favorability suffered by both Hillary and Bill Clinton. Both the Senator and ex-POTUS now have net unfavorable ratings among RVs. He moved from a fav/unfav of 55%/41% in Feb. to 45%/51% now, while Hillary dropped from 54%/40% to 43%/53% over the same period.
What’s more, Dems and GOPers alike now feel more unfavorable towards the Clintons. Since Feb., Bill’s favs among Dems dropped 8%, while his unfavs increased 9%; Hillary’s favs plummeted 13%, while her unfavs soared 12%.
The Clintons saw similar, though not quite as pronounced losses, among GOPers; Bill’s favs fell 6%, while his unfavs increased 4%, and Hillary’s favs fell 7% while her unfavs increased 8%. Inds meanwhile give him a fav/unfav of 34%/62% and give her a 38%/58% rating.
Since the Feb. poll, the overall fav/unfavs of Obama and McCain did not move beyond the survey’s margin of error. Obama did, however, gain among Dems – his favs increased by 7% while his unfavs decreased by the same. Over the same period, his unfavs increased by double-digits from 50% to 61% among GOPers, while McCain’s favs with the group increased by 14%.
Generic Shrugs
Looking at who voters believe has a better chance of winning the Nov. election, a generic Dem or a generic GOPer, the Dem holds a 17% lead. This margin is solid, but down considerably from the party’s 31% Feb. lead. The drop is largely attributable to Inds. Since the Feb. poll, the generic Dem stayed mostly static among GOP respondents, and its lead decreased by 10% among Dems. But Inds moved from breaking 48%-25% in favor of the Dem in Feb. to a statistical tie of 37%-35% between the two generic candidates.
What has moved the Inds away from the Dem camp? Tough to know definitively, and there’s no single factor, of course. But it could be the “generic” GOP candidate no longer exists because McCain has secured the nod. His widely established appeal to Inds (he leads both Clinton and Obama among them in general matchups) is far greater than that of the average GOPer. Or perhaps it’s the bitter fight for the Dem nod, which has left nearly half of all Dem primary voters – a group which includes one-fifth of all Inds – believing Clinton attacked Obama unfairly. By contrast, 22% of these primary voters say the same about Obama.
Policing Policy
The issue on everyone’s mind is the economy. More than one-third, 37% of RVs, say it’s the most significant issue facing the country – nearly triple the next highest response of Iraq (opposition only). This figure is even higher among Dem primary voters – 44% of whom say the economy is most important.
But who do they think is best suited to fix it? When asked which party they trust to handle the economy, more than half (54%) of voters say the Dem party, while just one-third opt for the GOP. But when asked which candidate voters trust most to handle the economy, McCain leads both Dems with 35%, while 31% opt for Obama and 20% choose Clinton.
Here, Obama and Clinton largely split the Dem vote in a three-way question. Two-thirds of GOPers want McCain to handle the economy, while Dem primary voters divide their support between Obama (52%) and Clinton (33%). Naturally, these Obama and Clinton blocks consist largely of their respective primary voters. More than four-fifths, 81% of Clinton primary voters, say she is the best candidate to handle the economy, while 84% of Obama primary voters say the same about him.
On national security, which will presumably play a large role in the fall campaign, the parties basically break even – the GOP leads 43-40%, within the margin of error. But when the question is asked with respect to candidates, McCain holds a commanding lead over both Dems with 48% to Obama’s 23% and Clinton’s 19%.
(Hotline’s MATTHEW GOTTLIEB)
Posted at 04:38 PM
Comments
I don't know what the Clinton campaign expects on fav/unfav and on the whether they attacked Obama unfairly when they came out after Wisconsin and flatly told everyone in the nation that they were going to "throw the kitchen sink at him" and proceeded to do so.
Bubba | 04.05.08 04:18 AM
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