Gerard Baker, hardly a champion of Hillary Clinton, brings a sense of proportion to the question of whether she can still win the nomination in today's Times. But the figures also suggest a more nuanced story than the Obamaphiles would have us believe. Not only is Hillary ahead in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, but Obama does no better against McCain in the battleground states that will decide the election than Hillary does; in some, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, she outperforms him. So, disappointing as it will be to Obama's swooning fans in the British media, not least Sarah Smith on Channel 4 News and the Spectator's James Forsyth, we are probably in for a rather closer battle than the received wisdom would have us believe (received wisdom that called New Hampshire and California so accurately).
1 comment:
The fact Hillary is ahead in those states doesn't matter unless she also starts winning smaller states. Hillary would need to win by 50 points in all three of those big states to simply come level with the likely number of pledged delegates Obama will have after North Carolina (just after Pennsylvania, an interesting arrangement for momentum purposes).
It's also interesting to note that the margins are too close between Clinton or Obama and McCain to really say one way or another who would be more popular given the amount of undecided voters left. No-one can deny that Obama has the narrative and the popular support to be more likely to pull these over to his side...especially if Clinton doesn't act spoilt and fully endorses the democratic nomination if she loses and puts her resources behind Obama in some way.
It'll be interesting when more of these state based head to head polls come out, but right now there are not enough and too many undecided's to really be able to tell who would be more likely to win in those states.
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