Gallup National Poll: Huge Obama (National) Surge (+Obama leads Hillary by 3% in California)

[kpete]

January 30, 2008
Gallup Daily: Tracking Election 2008
Based on daily polling from Jan. 27-29, 2008USA Election 2008 Gallup Daily

Americas Northern America PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama has now cut the gap with Hillary Clinton to 6 percentage points among Democrats nationally in the Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day average, and interviewing conducted Tuesday night shows the gap between the two candidates is within a few points. Obama's position has been strengthening on a day-by-day basis. As recently as Jan. 18-20, Clinton led Obama by 20 points. Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking is based on interviews conducted Jan. 27-29, all after Obama's overwhelming victory in South Carolina on Saturday. Two out of the three nights interviewing were conducted after the high-visibility endorsement of Obama by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy.

Clinton's lead in the three-day average is now 42% to Obama's 36%. John Edwards, who dropped out of the race today after Gallup conducted these interviews, ended his quest for the presidency with 12% support. Wednesday night's interviewing will reflect the distribution of the vote choice of former Edwards' supporters as well as the impact, if any, of Hillary Clinton's popular vote win in Florida on Tuesday.

These national numbers are a critically important indicator of the political environment when voters in more than 20 states go to the polls next Tuesday. At the moment, Obama has the momentum among Democrats nationally.

more at:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/104044/Gallup-Daily-Tracking-Election-2008.aspx

Obama leads Hillary by 3% in California

..................

On the Democratic side, the combined results of three nightly samplings of 400 different voters - for Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday - found Hillary Rodham Clinton at 36 percent, Obama at 31 percent and John Edwards at 12 percent.

But when taken alone, Sunday's tracking - just a day after Obama's big win in the South Carolina primary - had Obama leading Clinton, 35 percent to 32 percent, with Edwards' share growing to 16 percent. And pretty much the same numbers came up Monday.

One caveat: A prominent political consultant following the numbers emphasizes that while a single night's tracking isn't considered statistically reliable, it does show movement and direction.

more at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/BAVUUO9E4.DTL

[BayouBengal07]

1. GObama!

:toast: :applause:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. both Clinton and Obama campaigns acknowledge that is going to be close

[NoBorders]

6. And if it close, primary race goes past 2/5

since none of the states are winner-takes-all.

[krkaufman]

35. At worst, I'm hoping Obama can win a few and stay close in the rest.

He just needs to not be trounced in the big states, so he can withstand the media-centric Super Tuesday states and get back to campaigning with the people.

[goodhue]

3. no doubt

The fever is catching

[cali]

4. Great news

It could be very close.

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. O-Yeah

[Nailzberg]

7. Aww, Shizzle!

Fired up!

[adabfree]

13. For Rizzle

lmao

go bama

[Arugula Latte]

8. Oh, god, I'm afraid to get my hopes up that Hillary can be defeated...

Please, please, please, please, please ...

[goodhue]

11. have no fear

It can happen

[krkaufman]

37. Yeah, it's an uphill battle.

Obama's team needs to find a way to spin anything other than an across-the-board rout of him as a victory, given Clinton's name recognition -- critical in the overloaded Super Tuesday states.

Much/all will depend on how the Super Tuesday results are spun in the media.

[Barack_America]

9. That's wonderful!! Thanks! n/t

[Enrique]

10. I have the feeling this has barely started

these mano a mano debates are going to be something to behold.

[in_cog_ni_to]

12. This means nothing. It was done BEFORE Edwards dropped out. However, Hillary is still

leading Barack by a nice margin.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. "Sunday's tracking - just a day after Obama's big win in the South Carolina primary"

That was the last day in this tracking poll, and that was the only day where Obama led Clinton in California.

Speaking of Polls. This reminds me of a OP I made last night:

Meaningless From Now On: Gallop, Zogby,Rasmussen, ARG, Quinnipiac, Pew, Marist...

In fact all opinion polls mean nothing and are unworthy of our consideration. NONE of them, not a single god damned one of them, award a single campaign delegate, so what good are they?

If a new poll comes out with a 500 likely voter sample from Connecticut showing Obama closing the gap with Clinton there, why bother mentioning it? Unless actual delegates are awarded based on that poll, there is nothing of any value to be learned from it.

Same thing with the Florida Primary. 1.6 Million Democrats who have nothing better to do than vote in an election that will not award convention delegates. Pathetic. Why encourage that nonsense by giving it attention? Florida voters are ALWAYS demanding that we pay attention to their meaningless votes. Look at the crap they pulled in 2000. They made the whole F'ing nation sit and watch them count "hanging chads" for weeks and NONE of it mattered! Did the actual winner get a single electoral vote out of it? No! Nada! Nothing!

Haven't we learned anything? Stop paying attention when millions of Floridians vote. We all know that Florida elections don't mean anything.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4284290&mesg_id=4284290

[milkyway]

20. You should let the Clinton campaign know that polls are useless--a pollster is their top strategist.

[Tom Rinaldo]

22. Feel free to send my OP to him

Actually I thought the satire was self evident. People who throw rocks at elections where well over a million democrats actually go out and vote should not boast about their preferred opinion polls.

[krkaufman]

39. Well, their main relevance is that the sheeple like to vote for a winner ...

... rather than having a clue what the person they vote for supports. Ideally, it'd be great if the campaigns could do their polling and keep it to themselves. Our election process would SO benefit from banning discussion of polling numbers in the media.

[jefferson_dem]

15. Bow Chicka Wow Wow!

:bounce:

[agdlp]

16. Clinton leads by 6 % and half of the Callifornian votes are by mail

rest my case :-)

[cali]

17. don't rest it until you provide a link demonstrating

that 50% of CA votes have been cast. I won't be holding my breath for the obvious reason.

[rinsd]

33. About half of the CA votes will be by mail, that does not mean they are already cast

About half of voters are expected to use mail-in ballots -- which have been available since Jan. 7 -- and Clinton was romping over Obama among that group, 53% to 30%. Among those expecting to cast ballots in a traditional precinct visit, the race was a closer 42% to 34% in Clinton's favor. Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney was also running stronger among mail-in voters, if still behind McCain.

Under the supervision of Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, the survey questioned 1,820 registered voters from Jan. 23 through Sunday, including 690 deemed likely to cast ballots in the Democratic primary and another 437 likely Republican primary voters. The margin of sampling error was 4 percentage points for the Democratic primary and 5 points among Republicans.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-poll29jan29,1,5092615.story?track=crosspromo

[Samantha]

41. Hey, Cali, I don't have a link but I heard this said today on MSNBC

and I am worried about it. I think it's the same situation as in Florida. Many people voted by absentee in California before Obama gained the momentum. The figure I heard was 50% of the votes. I hope that is incorrect but who knows ....

[Joe the Revelator]

18. Half of all voters, huh? Got any proof of that at all?

nt

[Jed Dilligan]

38. She can't

No one knows how many of us will turn out until Tuesday.

[Hepburn]

19. Well, maybe Edwards dropping out did some good....

...if any of the surge can be attributed to this. I am a Californian and there is no way in hell I am voting for Hillary in the primary. I hope to hell she gets trounced real good on Super Tues in my state.

[Thrill]

21. Herman Munster and Proud2BAmurkin must be crapping their pants

[truebrit71]

25. Wouldn't know...both of those asshalfs are on ignore...

...and my life as been SO much better for it...

[pampango]

28. You and me both. Though "Ignore" does show up pretty often in lists of posts.

:)

[truebrit71]

30. I know!! I get a giggle every time I see that...

..because they're usually in pro-Obama threads and you just KNOW they're spewing more vile hatred and lies...

:rofl:

[Nedsdag]

23. GOBAMA indeed!

:toast: :party: :bounce: :woohoo: :applause:

[Bitwit1234]

24. Fifteen minutes ago ....the polls are up at Real politics

And of all of the SIX MAJOR POLLS the closest the other candidate comes to Hillary Clinton in CALIFORNIA is Rasmussen....38 Clinton to 33 the other guy.

The other Clinton the other candidate
Survey 49 38
USA Today/CNN 49 32
Field 39 27
PPIC 43 28


Good gooky mooky .....the spin the spin the spin

[zulchzulu]

26. Let's keep the pedal to the medal! n/t

[Unsane]

27. HOLY SHIT

gobama

[Strelnikov_]

29. There will be blood

This is no primary for old men.

[Nimrod2005]

31. She is going down FAST.

[JackORoses]

42. Helter Skelter! Look out!!!

She coming down fast!

[AtomicKitten]

32. The Clintons are seeing a freight train coming at them in their rear view mirror.

All aboard!

[JackORoses]

43. People Get Ready, there's a Train a-coming

[krkaufman]

34. Now you know why the Clinton campaign needed the show on Tuesday night...

... to hopefully break the momentum. (And now we also know why she fought so hard for every possible vote in Florida.)

[loveangelc]

36. Interesting, though I don't know how accurate Gallup has been recently.

I do not think it's just a given that Obama will lose big in CA.

[BenDavid]

40. excuse me but the 3% was from a sampling of only 400 people

and if you really wanna know the truth about california then it is HRC by 12-15 over obama......you folks I tell ya are getting so nervous that obama is going to gt his ass handed to him....

I guess that big vote hrc received in florida last night really scared the crap out of ya.....

[JAbuchan08]

44. I am still unconvinced by Obama

but he is still light years better than Clinton