With 48 hours to go, where things stand on Super Tuesday

February 3, 2008

Political observers have seen quite a few major contests over the last month, but they’ve largely happened one at a time. It makes it easier for news outlets to conduct polls in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, which in turn gives us some sense of what to expect. (I say “some,” of course, because there have been a few surprises that the polls didn’t see coming.)

But with a 22-state Super Tuesday just 48 hours away, there hasn’t been nearly as much talk about polls this week. In turn, expectations are all over the place — most seem to expect Hillary Clinton to win most of Tuesday’s contests, but not by a large enough margin to solidify her as the presumptive nominee. (Clinton has said, up until fairly recently, that Feb. 5 would end the campaign. That prediction is almost certainly false, and she no longer makes the claim.) Likewise, John McCain is expected to do very well on Tuesday, but how well remains to be seen.

So, where do we stand? I’ve pulled together the recent numbers I could find, which should at least give us a hint of what’s to come. This won’t include every contest, because some states haven’t been polled.

California

For the Dems, a McClatchy-MSNBC poll out last night shows Clinton leading Obama, 45% to 36%. Zogby shows Obama leading Clinton, 45% to 41%. Rasmussen and SurveyUSA both show Clinton ahead by single digits.

For the Republicans, McClatchy-MSNBC shows McCain ahead with 40%, followed by Romney with 31%, and Mike Huckabee with 13%. Every other poll shows McCain ahead by a similar margin.

Georgia

For the Dems, Obama is looking strong in Georgia, leading Clinton 47% to 41% in the McClatchy-MSNBC poll. Most other surveys show a similar result, though Zogby shows Obama’s lead to be even bigger.

For the Republicans, McClatchy-MSNBC shows McCain at 33%, followed by Romney at 27%, and Huckabee at 18%. Other polls show Huckabee doing even better, making this contest up for grabs.

Missouri

For the Dems, McClatchy-MSNBC shows Clinton up 47% to 41%.

For the Republicans, the same poll shows McCain with 37%, followed by Huckabee at 27%, and Romney at 24%.

New Jersey

For the Dems, McClatchy-MSNBC shows Clinton ahead, 46% to 39%.

For the Republicans, the same poll shows McCain with 46%, followed by Romney at 31%, and Huckabee at 5%.

Arizona

For the Dems, this one of the more interesting ones. McClatchy-MSNBC shows Clinton leading Obama by just two points, 43% to 41%. Arizona Republicans weren’t polled, because it’s McCain’s home state.

New York

Few have been polling the state for the Dems, given that Clinton represents New York in the Senate, but the Republican race isn’t looking close. Zogby shows McCain up with 49%, followed by Romney at 23%, and Huckabee at 8%.

Pollster.com has some additional data, including numbers from some big states like Colorado and Tennessee, though there aren’t enough numbers to see noticeable trend lines.

A couple of big-picture angles to keep in mind. First, none of the Democratic races are winner-take-all contests, meaning that delegates will be awarded on a proportional level. In this sense, a candidate can win the state, but unless the margin of victory is huge, the second-place candidate can fare pretty well.

Second, John McCain is ahead in every contest except Massachusetts and Utah, and most of the GOP contests are winner take call. It’s why McCain has every reason to be very confident.

And third, as the LAT notes, thanks to early voting and absentee ballots, as many as one-fifth of all ballots cast in these states may not be counted until after Election Day.

Should be interesting.

I think it’s safe to say the Dem race will not end soon. Not only are none of the Super Tuesday states winner-take-all, but the rules have a built in advantage for the underdog. AmericaBlog explains it this way:

For the Democrats, in a congressional district with three delegates, two go to the popular vote winner, and the loser gets the third as long as they win 15 percent of the popular vote.
But in a congressional district with four delegates, the winner and loser in a two-way race are likely to divide the spoils evenly. The winner must receive nearly 63 percent of the vote to get a 3-1 split in delegates, and 85 percent of the vote to win all four.

The good news is that it takes away the advantage from the person with name recognition and a majority of yard signs. The bad news is that it gives more weight to voters in apathetic districts, diluting votes in high intensity areas.

  • CNN has an interview later on Blitzer’s show where Huckabee apparently calls on Romney to drop out of the race now, because Huckabee is the one who can beat McCain in the South. It will be an interesting interview, Huckabee sounds desperate or nuts or both.

  • Obama is surging everywhere (polls released over the last 2 days):

    CA: Clinton 36, Obama 34 (California Field Poll)
    UT: Obama 53, Clinton 29 (The Desert News)
    NJ: Obama 43, Clinton 42 (Zogby)
    MO: Obama 44, Clinton 43 (Zogby)
    GA: Obama 48, Clinton 28 (Zogby)
    DE: Clinton 44, Obama 42 (ARG)
    CT: Obama 48, Clinton 44 (WTNH, Channel 8 Poll)

    Hillary was supposed to have a lock on the NY tristate area (NY, CT, NJ). I don’t think Obama will take NY, but NJ and CT are certainly vulnerable.

    Feb. 5th was supposed to be Hillary’s chance to put a dent in him. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, and if she doesn’t stop him then, the rest of february is tailor made for Obama – lots of caucus states (in which he’s got a better ground game than Hillary), and and states with a good-sized African American population – MD, DC, VA.

    The more time he has to make his case to voters, the worse it gets for Hillary.

  • The Wikipedia article on divination provides a host of ways of telling what will happen Tuesday. Unfortunately, I ate the goat entrails before I could read their secrets. Their articles on magic and religion and fortune telling are worth a look, too.

    One of my earliest political experiences, having doggedly spent the summer and early fall of 1948 being ridiculed by local store owners for handing out Democratic campaign literature in Paso Robles CA (population, at that time, about 4,000, all Republican): Truman Defeats Dewey. Among my latest political experiences in 2008 has been the utter failure of pollsters and punsters to predict the caucuses and primaries so far.

  • …but the rules have a built in advantage for the underdog

    The advantage can actually cut either way. It all depends on the numbers and which districts each candidate wins. The more popular candidate can win a bigger portion of the delegates than their vote share: for example a 1 delegate district is winner take all and a 3 delegate district goes 2-1 to the victor even if the margin is 51-49. (This explains Romney’s huge win in Wyoming – you saw the delegate count, not the popular vote).

    Obama also isn’t that much of an underdog. The polls show Obama and Clinton within single digits of each other, that means he’ll pull off victories in some districts, she’ll pull off victories in others, but by and large it’ll be close. In states with more delegates the advantages will likely cancel out and come closer to the popular vote percentages.

    That said, I’d love for us to simply switch to a straight count of the vote.

  • I think it would be good for the party if Super Tuesday did NOT decide who the nominee is. Maybe it would end this sense that the early voting states dictate the candidate. And thus end the race to be first to vote.

  • You mentioned Zogby for the democrates in CA, why didn’t you mention that Zogby has Romney ahead of McCain in CA 37/34 ?

  • My state, California, moved its primary to Super Tuesday (Used to be in June) in an attempt to have Californians’ votes actually matter. With 21 other states and two territories in play on ST the effect has been muted. Now we have the candidates madly dashing from one town to another across the country. I predict that the overall winner will be jet lag.

    Both parties ought to sit down and work out a rational primary system lest we be confronted with a single national primary on New Years Day.

  • Don’t know what this is worth, but my ex-girlfriend (still a good friend) said that her two brothers (lifelong fiscal conservatives), and mother (wingnut), plan to vote for Obama. Their reasons vary. For the brothers, whom I, as a lifelong progressive, respect, it’s a desire for “change.” (I know how meaningless that word is becoming.) But they truly see Obama as a way to “turn the page” on the exhausting hyperpartisan decade or so we’ve just gone through (I’m sorry, but I can’t stop talking in cliches. Thanks a lot Obama – your campaign is becoming the common wisdom). And for the mother, well, she’s just pissed that McCain is winning and hates her choices. But I’ll take it!
    Also, my best friend, who’s been for Hillary from the start, has switched to Obama. He told me he didn’t like the way the Clintons handled “the race” in SC, if you know what I mean. I told him welcome aboard.
    These people live in L.A., NYC, Minneapolis and rural VA. Here’s hoping there are lots more stories like this playing out elsewhere.

  • I’ve been an Obama supporter since I saw him speak a year ago and read his books. But the Clintons evil tactics have left me with the feeling that Obama can usher in an American Renaissance which we need more than Restoration at this point.

    I would have been fine with Hillary, but not anymore. They are too negative and heavily invested in by big power machines, while Obama made his fortune with little old ladies sending quarters in envelopes. BIG PICTURE people. Google up world news. The whole world is rooting for Obama, while we wait for the hollow minded and the desperate housewives to catch on.

    At that Obama rally last year, I knew.
    and Bill Clinton has been a bad bad husband.

  • barring some extraordinaily odd alignment of support on a Congressional District basis, it appears (per the list of polls on Political Wire) that only 4 states have any real potential to result in delegate splits that are more than trivial: Georgia and Illinois for Obama, New York and Oklahoma for Clinton. Given that almost every Congressional District in play on Tuesday that has an even number of delegates will result in a tie (because it takes 62.5% in a 4-delegate district or 58% in a 6-delegate district), no one is going to move very far ahead. The proportional allocation rule will keep this competitive for several weeks yet. i know many good government types think this is a positive thing; we’ll see if that is still true once McCain is raising – but no longer having to spend – money and is free to direct all of his fire toward the Democrats who will still be beating on each other.

  • I was born Dec. of 1970. This means I didn’t get to vote in the presidintial election of 1988 because I was born 1 MONTH too late! Not that my vote would have changed things. I DID vote for Clinton twice. I would have voted for Al Gore if my vote might have made a difference, but I knew that California was safely in Gore’s collumn, so I voted Green that year. I voted for Kerry hoping for a miracle.

    I don’t know what my point is. I just like y’all and wanted to share. maybe we could all share a little about ourselves and state who we are supporting. It would be like a mini poll. Not very scientific, but it might be interesting to hear about our ages, voting patterns etc along with who we are supporting this time around.

  • Zeitgeist,

    we’ll see if that is still true once McCain is raising – but no longer having to spend – money and is free to direct all of his fire toward the Democrats who will still be beating on each other.

    Unless the race gets dirty again, this will help the Democrats. Obama and Clinton will both remain in the news, helping which ever wins the nomination. McCain will spend his time attacking Democrats but won’t get as much attention if he has clinched the nomination.

  • From Today’s LA Times “Top of the Ticket” blog:

    Ed Coghlan was just starting to prepare his dinner in the northern San Fernando Valley the other night when the phone rang. The caller was very friendly. He identified himself as a pollster who wanted to ask registered independents like Coghlan a few questions about the presidential race and all the candidates for Super Tuesday’s California primary.

    Ed, who’s a former news director for a local TV station, was curious. He said, “Sure, go ahead.”

    But a few minutes into the conversation Ed says he noticed a strange pattern developing to the questions. First of all, the “pollster” was only asking about four candidates, three Democrats — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, who was still in the race at the time — and one Republican — John McCain.

    Also, every question about Clinton was curiously positive, Coghlan recalls. The caller said things like, if you knew that Sen. Clinton believed the country had a serious home mortgage problem and had made proposals to….

    freeze mortgage rates and save families from foreclosure, would you be more likely or less likely to vote for her?

    Ed said, of course, more likely.

    Every question about the other candidates was negative. If Ed knew, for instance, that as a state senator Obama had voted “present” 43 times instead of taking a yes or no stand “for what he believed,” would Ed be more or less likely to vote for him?

    “That’s when I caught on,” said Coghlan. He realized then that he was being push-polled. That malicious political virus that is designed not to elicit answers but to spread positive information about one candidate and negative information about all others under the guise of an honest poll had arrived in Southern California within days of the important election.

    It could become an issue in the closing hours of the campaign.

    Someone who obviously favors Hillary Clinton is paying an unidentified company to spread this material phone call by phone call among independent voters, who can, according to California party rules, opt to vote in the Democratic but not the Republican primary on Feb. 5, when nearly two dozen states will choose a large chunk of the delegates to the parties’ national conventions next summer.

    Coghlan said he was offended by such underhanded tactics and knew he was going to get out a warning about this dirty trick, but he said he played along for the full 20-minute “poll.”

    “The guy was very slick, very personable,” Coghlan told the Ticket. “He never fell out of character as a pollster the entire time. He seemed interested in my answers and just kept going through his list of questions as if he was noting my answers. He was very good, very smooth.”

    For instance, the caller inquired, had Ed watched a recent Democratic debate? Ed said yes. And who did Ed think had won the debate? the pollster inquired.

    Coghlan replied, honestly, that he thought Edwards had won because he was calmer and more reasoned didn’t get involved in all the petty arguing and finger-pointing like the other two. Now, the pollster said, if Ed knew that most people believed John Edwards could not get elected in a general election, would Ed be more or less likely to vote for him?

    Ed said, oh, well then, less, of course. And the caller appeared to make a note of that.

    “He was not pushy at all,” Coghlan said. “And at the end he thanked me for giving him my opinions.”

    Phil Singer, the spokesman for the Clinton campaign. was contacted by e-mail last night. He answered that he was there. He was asked if the Clinton campaign was behind the push-poll, knew who was behind it or had any other information on it. That was at 5:27 p.m. Pacific time Saturday. As of this item’s posting time, exactly eight hours later, no reply had been received.

    Surprise, surprise, Hill and Billary are still at it. They just can’t stop themselves – the same as William Bennett and his “disclosure problems.”

  • What happens to the early mail-in votes in CA, which still have Edwards as the choice? Does anyone know?

  • Libra (#20), to answer your question, unfortunately those votes are wasted. A mail in vote for Edwards before he dropped out of the race is lost. You can only vote once in the Primary whether you do it by absentee or at your polling place.

    This is why I vote at my polling place.

  • ROMNEY is this COUNTRYS BEST HOPE.

    Read this and become educated!

    ROMNEY has been successful in EVERY business venture Do you spend more money that you have at home? Then why should our government do so? Shouldn’t we run the country like a business? He is a leader, and he weeded out corrupt politicians in the Olympics and turned it around under budget!

    The Security model he had to implement in the 2002 Olympics because of 9/11 is being used in the Super bowl today, did you know that?

    He spends his own money therefore he will owe NO ONE in political power or special interest groups. I can go on and on but below is some info on Juan McCain.

    McCain is an absolute abysmal imbosol!! He’s a RHINO republican and tried to shove amnesty down our throat 2 times with “HIS OWN BILL”. HE IS FOR TAXING USA companies only to solve a so called GLOBAL warming problem. Well what about the rest of the WORLD? You people drink the kol-aid of the press and are completely UNINFORMED.

    You want to know something else, STUPIDY BREADS ITSELF. You will believe anything someone tells you if you are uninformed and that is what the liberal media is counting on.

    DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK!

    John McCain should be renamed as JUAN McCain. Have you noticed who his heading up his HISPANIC outreach group for this race. If not, Google “McCain and Dr. Juan Hernandez.

    I WILL NOT, SHALL NOT AND CAN NOT VOTE FOR JUAN McCain, I would rather the Republican Party dissolve, period!

    TOP TEN REASONS JOHN MCCAIN IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE:
    1. John McCain teamed with Ted Kennedy and attempted to give amnesty to every illegal alien in America, and even wished to grant them access retroactively to Social Security benefits accrued under illegally used numbers while here against the current law.

    2. John McCain (along with the regular cohort of lefties) removed your right to speak out against political candidates (including him) through advocacy ads in the 30-60 days before a primary or general election. The infamous McCain-Feingold legislation proves he couldn’t find an originalist judge if the man was sharing a pair of pants with him.

    3. John McCain considered leaving the GOP to become an independent caucusing with the Dems, and only balked when Jeffords beat him to it. Daschle and others swear its true.

    4. John McCain proved himself to be a populist anti-capitalist when he called the pharmaceutical companies “the enemy” during the most recent South Carolina debate. George Will is even wondering why John is a Republican and hasn’t switched yet.

    5. John McCain has swallowed the “Man Made Global Warming” pill whole. He has teamed with Lieberman to offer legislation to create a carbon cap and trade system that the Congressional Budget Office believes will add energy costs to each family of between $560-1800 per year, with the money raked in dispersed out in R&D grants, or government pork barrel goody contracts as I interpret it.

    6. John McCain voted against the “Bush” tax cuts more than once, voted for amendments to keep the death tax alive, and along with our faithful Governor Pawlenty calls huge tobacco tax increases “fees”.

    7. John McCain believes waterboarding for US Servicemen is normal during training for capture situations, but calls it unconscienable torture when applied to important organizational terrorist figures caught plotting to kill Americans. This American serviceman disagrees.

    8. John McCain supported gun control measures with rules that would have effectively shut down gun shows and gun sales between private parties. He teamed with Andrew McKelvey’s Handgun Control spinoff called Americans For Gun Safety. A real champion of the little guy our McCain. Gun Owner’s Of America rating – F

    9. John McCain has stated he would vote for the international anti-sovereignty Treaty of The Seas if it was “tweaked” a little. This compact would give an international body the jurisdiction to dictate naval forces movement, oceanic weapons and technology testing, and set and collect fees and divy up rights and royalties to all energy resources found and recovered at sea in current international waters. One country, one vote. How do you think Iran would vote for our rights to traverse the Straits of Hormuz?

    10. Midwest Jay really can’t stand the guy, and he reminds me too much of a pissed off Huck-a-jerk without the Chuck Norris sidekick. Leading a fighter squadron gives you leadership experience to lead a fighter squadron of 24 guys. Reagan made war bond films. Who cares. American hero or socialist? Probably both.

    Now you are educated on the facts, vote ROMNEY!

  • The democratic primary is the presidential race no matter how much the GOP would like us to believe otherwise. Whoever wins the democratic nomination will be the next president.

    The nerve of someone posting “Romney is this countries best hope”. How pathetic…he’s another vote for Bush and so is McInsane. Let em threaten “if Hillary wins the nomination then McInsane will be president” bullshit all they want. Will never happen. Dems could nominate any of the candidates who originally started off campaigning and they would have won. Sooner or later repubs will get the message…we are done with your way of doing things. The democratic party and whomever they nominate to represent them as president will be the new leaders of our democracy. They will restore the balance this administration has removed because a new direction is necessary if we are to save our democracy. We are uniting because we see that our country has all but been destroyed by those who manipulated 9/11 for power and profit. Welcome the new democratic ‘super-majority’, the more than 60 votes “needed to over ride republican obstructionism”, the 2/3rds needed to get the simple majority’s point across. The people are taking the country back from those who set out to deliberately divide it (Cheney, Rove and others). The democrats are busy picking the president.

  • Ha, Ha!!! Stupidy breads itself – my, now that sounds like a tasty snack; is it anything like Scampi? And, just a tip, but if I were going to make a wild-eyed, tin-foil-hat-wearing, foam-flecked post on somebody’s normally well-read moderate blog, and I were intending to use the word, “imbecile”, I’d look it up first. Unless you’re sure your spelling is correct, of course.

    I tried to read it and become educated, Richard, but I’m afraid it had the opposite effect. I felt myself becoming more stupidy the more I read.

    I’m afraid there’s pretty much no chance of Mitt Romney occupying the oval office, unless it’s up for sale. In that case, he could probably buy it. Not enough Republicans like him, and unfortunately, that’s how you get elected.

  • will obama concede when he gets blown out on super tuesday?

    will obama get out of the way of the democratic party taking its case to the people behind the person most qualified to clean up junior’s mess: hillary clinton?

    or will obama’s supporters go cry and suck their thumbs when he loses california worse than florida?

    the longer this is about obama and his fake momentum and his phony hope, the longer dems go unable to address the real problems facing this country: george bush and the republican party.

    tuesday can’t come soon enough. all this hype about momentum and delegates is just parsing to keep obama getting attention for obama. obama loves attention. he is going to get crushed in a hillary landslide. better get out of the way before he makes a complete ass of himself.

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