Pennsylvania Primary Preview: Obama vs. Clinton -- Who Will Win, By How Much, And More
Posted by Ashish on 04.21.2008
Full preview of Tuesday's big primary...
After a huge gap, voting in the Democratic nomination battle picks up again tomorrow with the Pennsylvania primary. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have gotten downright nasty in the past few weeks and the Clinton camp especially has thrown out its hardest attacks yet against Obama and he has responded aggressively as well. Both sides have also spent enormous amounts of money in the state, especially the Obama camp which has broken all PA primary spending records.
As we go into PA, we remain in the same position as we were prior to the last big states, Texas and Ohio on March 4th. Clinton has almost no chance of catching up to Obama in pledged delegates. Her only path to the nomination is to get superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegate and popular vote results and award her the nomination. To do this, she is hoping to make a case about how Obama can't win blue collar, low income, white voters in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. She also wants to try and show that all the controversies over the past few weeks surrounding Obama (Rev. Wright and bitter comments) have made Obama unelectable and that his momentum is slowing down.
Clinton started with a 20+ point lead in PA a few weeks back. Polls have since shown her lose much of that lead, but she still remains ahead. The final polling looks like this:
Rasmussen: Clinton 49, Obama 44 (Clinton +5)
InsiderAdvantage: Clinton 49, Obama 39 (Clinton +10)
Zogby: Clinton 49, Obama 42 (Clinton +7)
PPP: Clinton 46, Obama 49 (Obama +3)
Strategic Vision: Clinton 48, Obama 41 (Clinton +7)
SurveyUSA: Clinton 50, Obama 44 (Clinton +6)
Quinnipac: Clinton 51, Obama 44 (Clinton +7)
Now, as we can see from the polling, Clinton has lost a significant portion of what was once a 20+ point lead in PA, but she seems to be holding on. Only PPP has Obama ahead, everyone else has Clinton leading by five points or more. We also saw in Ohio and Texas that late undecided voters broke for her, which makes sense since late undecideds tend to break for the candidate they know more about since they aren't sold on either, and that would be Clinton, which means she will probably slightly outperform these polls.
SurveyUSA has been the most reliable pollster this season, so let's take a closer look at their numbers. It's worth noting that Clinton fell sharply in their poll compared to last week when she led by 14 points. An eight point drop in one week is interesting to say the least. But looking at the poll internals, Obama gets his usual 87% of the black vote and is also now up comfortably in Southeast PA which includes Philadelphia, but Clinton leads everywhere else fairly comfortably. This looks about right to me.
The key issue for Clinton will not be whether she wins or loses, because she HAS to win and everyone expects her to (a loss would finish her off completely), but how much she wins by. The conventional wisdom is that she needs to win by 10 points or more to really justify staying in the race (though she's unlikely to quit unless she loses PA). Expectations seem to be going up for her today as Matt Drudge reported that her internal polls have her up 11, and the media tends to always buy into what Drudge says. Realistically speaking, for the win to hold any long term impact and actually get Clinton back in the game, she would need to win by over 20 points. Anything below that and she will be able to go on, but the dynamics of the race will remain the same -- an almost certain Obama win in the end. A seven point win or less would be pretty disappointing for her. She would still give a positive victory speech and try to paint the win as a big one, but the underlying truth would be that she spent almost all of her remaining money in PA only to pull off a win that does nothing to change the dynamics of the race and actually serves to prove that she is fading everywhere including a state that was thought to be one of her strongest. A win by 10 or more will keep some money coming in to her campaign and allow her to fight on to North Carolina and Indiana on May 6th, even if her ultimate chances of winning remain non-existant. The only way for her to really prove that Obama is fading and that superdelegates should give her the nomination even if she loses the pledged delegate and popular vote counts is if she wins PA by 15+ and then wins IN AND NC on May 6th. That would be a sign that Obama is collapsing. Obama has a large lead in NC right now just like Clinton did in PA, OH, and TX. We've seen Obama eat into Clinton leads. We'll need to see Clinton do the same in NC.
Originally Clinton started her PA campaign by positioning herself to win the state big and possibly overtake Obama in the popular vote by the end of the primary, figuring that if she can't win the pledged delegate count, the popular vote would be the next best thing. But that scenario involved Clinton winning PA by 20+ points, something nobody expects now. Obama is almost ensured of winning the popular vote now, but again, if Clinton wants anybody to take her seriously when all of this ends, she will have to start tomorrow with a 20+ win, otherwise she is just delaying the inevitable.
"I am a big believer that she needs either one, the popular or the delegate count,'' in order to make a case for why she should be the nominee, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, a Clinton backer, said in an interview with Bloomberg.com.
It's also worth noting that Clinton's expectations have also gone up because Obama has had a disasterous few weeks. The media tore into him over the Rev. Wright controversy, his "bitter" comments, and most recently his ABC debate performance. If he is still able to finish fairly close to Clinton after he trailed by so much, it would be viewed as him proving his strength in fighting off controversies and Clinton's inability to win big in a state where she had to win big, even when she had the advantages of Obama controversies, favorable demographics, and a huge starting lead.
The Obama camp has stated that they are shooting for a single digit loss and Obama even said today that he doesn't expect to win the state, though he did add that he may do better than people expect. Turnout will be a major key for him. If he can get record numbers of people to show up and vote for him in Philadelphia and elsewhere, it will keep him close and possibly allow him to beat expectations which currently are an eight to 10 point loss. A five to seven point loss would be viewed as positive by the Obama camp, and anything better than that would be pretty crushing for Clinton as I explained above.
PA is the last big state Clinton has left that favors her drastically and is thus the final opportunity she has to eat into Obama's big lead. If she fails to do so, it's another missed opportunity for her because she is expected to lose NC and Indiana is a toss up. All the states after that are fairly small and she won't make up any ground there. As I've been saying, Clinton will HAVE to finish within 50-60 pledged delegates of Obama and end this race on a winning streak similar to what Obama did in February to put real doubts into the minds of superdelegates and make enough of them doubtful enough of Obama to actually overturn the election and accept all the risks that come with that (the party being ripped apart and basically ensuring a McCain win in November).
And as we have seen in Texas and Ohio, the areas in PA that Clinton is strongest in are also areas that aren't as delegate rich as the areas Obama is strong in. That means that she will have to win by a very large margin to come out with a significant gain in pledged delegates. Obama could lose the state by 5 points and still win the delegate count.
And the last factor I'll toss in is that Rush Limbaugh got many Republicans in PA to register as Democrats so they could vote in this primary, and he wants them to vote for Clinton because Republicans view her as the weaker candidate and would rather face her. They also want the Democratic race to continue, figuring the longer it goes, the more divided the party will be in November. This may tack on an extra point or two to Hillary's total.
So what do I think will happen? I'm predicting that Clinton will win the state by eight points, 54% to 46%. I'm also predicting that she will win 84 of the state's 158 pledged delegates, leaving Obama with 74 delegates for a net gain of 10 pledged delegates for Clinton. She currently trails Obama in pledged delegates by 166, meaning a gain of 10 would put Obama ahead by 156 pledged delegates. He leads in overall delegates by 142, meaning a Clinton gain of 10 would change his lead to 132. You can see from these numbers why it will be so difficult for Clinton to catch up. When she wins, she wins by small margins. When Obama wins, he wins by huge margins. For example, Clinton won the huge states of Texas and Ohio on March 4th and her TOTAL gain in delegates from those wins was TWO. Obama won Mississippi and Wyoming in March, and his TOTAL gain in delegates from those two small states was NINE. Clinton won't make up any ground unless she wins states by huge margins, and there doesn't seem to be a single state left other than maybe Kentucky where she can win by a large margin.
Who do you think will win PA and why? Post your thoughts in the comments section below, but make sure you explain why you think what you do.
It's pretty much a given that Clinton will win Pa. I tend to agree with the eight points you have given her. Right now what remains to be seen is what happens on Wednesday morning. Will she come out with another Rocky analogy? Her behavior during the primaries has been disgraceful. Right now she HAS to know that she cannot get the nomination without "stealing" it, or she really is positioning herself for an "I told you so" run in 2012.
Posted By: Eric (Guest) on April 21, 2008 at 05:10 PM
For some reason, I keep thinking that Obama is going to pull out a 1-2% upset tomorrow. We'll see.
Posted By: Mary (Guest) on April 21, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Obama 50.1%
Clinton 48.9%
Obama wins due to a huge influx of newly registered voters. He will capture 41% of the White vote which I predict will be 78% of the electorate, He will win the black vote at 89%-10% which should be 17% of the electorate and will win others by a 20% margin-5%of the electorate.
So, don't say I am dreaming when you see this and it's very plausible.
Posted By: jr1886 (Guest) on April 22, 2008 at 01:05 AM
Pretty good analysis out of Ashish, at least in analyzing the numbers. I'm guessing Hilary wins by 10 percent, like she did in Ohio. The only thing I'll say is that no matter what happens, Obama won't prove anything about his ability to "fight off controversies" until the general election (I'm sorry, but the electorate in the general is just too different than the one in the Democratic primary). Also, while it is true that Republicans regarded Hilary as the weaker candidate for awhile, that's not necessarily true now. Obama has so much baggage with these latest scandals (and Hilary's baggage is more or less common knowledge, while Obama's is still developing) that many Republicans that I've seen are now making the argument that Obama is weaker. I'm not saying that is necessarily true (though it might be), and not all Republicans are saying that, but it is interesting. Oh, and there's no way Hilary drops out before she's mathematically eliminated (unless she loses Pennsylvania). She's waiting for Obama to implode and become unelectable. Given the recent problems that he's had, it's not a bad strategy because it's really the only way she can win the nomination without destroying the party in the process (and thus losing in November, which would completely defeat the purpose of wresting the nomination away from Obama). The problems he's had so far aren't enough, but some other things may come out in the next month or so. It's probably a longshot that something will come out that will drive him from the race, but Hilary's already invested so much into this race, I just don't see her leaving without at least waiting to see if Obama does something REALLY stupid or has a REALLY bad scandal come out.
Posted By: John (Guest) on April 22, 2008 at 03:50 AM
Ashish is doing a great job here! This blog is more astute than most mainstream media campaign coverage.
John wrote:
"She's waiting for Obama to implode and become unelectable."
I agree. Clinton is no fool and she realizes she cannot overrule the delegate count unless Obama crashes and burns, or unless he has only ~50 delegates more than her. I also agree this is a viable strategy. And the race is pretty close after all; you can't blame Clinton for staying in. Obama agrees she should stay as long as she wants.
The only time Clinton upsets me is when she tries to make Obama implode with the "kitchen sink" strategy and comments such as "he is not a Muslim, as far as I know." That's dirty politics, especially against a fellow Democrat. I do not think Obama has done that to Clinton. He must have been tempted with her "under fire" fantasy. In my opinion, he should hit her hard on legitimate political issues, especially her inept performance in the health care reform effort in the first Clinton administration, and her lack of experience. Obama has won more elections than Clinton ever did, and he did it without help from an ex-President and party bigwigs.
Posted By: Jed Rothwell (Guest) on April 22, 2008 at 02:07 PM
From MSNBC:
"After a six-week lull since the last Democratic primary, Pennsylvania voters were so eager to participate in the hotly contested battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama that one in 10 changed their party registration since the start of 2008 so they could vote Tuesday. The contest was open only to registered Democrats. About half the party-switchers had been registered Republicans, while the rest had been unaffiliated with either party."
Republicans trying to stack the vote in favour of a candidate they believe McCain can beat. And people say democracy is dead?
Posted By: Rod Oracheski (Registered) on April 22, 2008 at 10:20 PM
She'll win WV big, but we're a small state. I live here and sadly enough, their are quite a few people who would not vote for him for the basist of reasons, race, he wont wear the flag, his name (literally one said his name was going to make her register to vote against him-- although I believe she is from eastern KY), I will vote for him, but I expect a loss by a wide here.
Posted By: mindflux (Guest) on April 22, 2008 at 11:20 PM
STAY CURRENT