LCG Election Monitor Blog

It is our sense that Texas is really beginning to move toward Obama.  The latest Reuters/C-SPAN poll has Obama up 6 points (48-42%) among likely Democratic primary voters in Texas.  Interestingly, Clinton is only winning among the 65+ age cohort.  Obama has a solid majority with all other age groups.  This has been a dominant breakdown in the last several primaries/caucuses and Texas is proving no exception.  And remember that Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary and they are solidly behind Obama.

Things however, may change over the weekend as Clinton hammers Obama on experience.  Her latest television spot is very tough…questioning whether voters want to trust Obama with their children’s lives.  Our feeling: too little way too late.

Tags: Barack Obama, Campaign Spots, Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton, New Polling Data by Steve Lombardo
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While we recognize that it is conceivable that Hillary Clinton may pull out a win on March 4th, it is now increasingly likely that she will lose Texas and possibly Ohio as well.  Even though Obama will be well short of the 2025 delegates needed to secure the nomination, this will effectively give him the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Our analysis of the latest public tracking polls in both states shows a dead heat in Texas and a slight lead for Clinton in Ohio.  But the trend lines are awfully problematic for Hillary.  In Texas, Obama has come from 10 points behind two weeks ago to a virtual tie. 

And in Ohio, Obama has nearly erased a 20 point deficit.  Winning eleven straight contests has given Obama political momentum.  That means that undecided voters and “soft” Clinton supporters are switching to Obama.  Nothing has changed the course of this narrative over the last 30 days.

More importantly, when we run a regression based on the last 15 polls in each state, our projection, as of today, is for Obama to win Texas by 5 points and Clinton to win Ohio by a precariously slim margin of 2 points.    We will update this on Monday but the implication is clear.  Unless there is some dramatic turn of events in the next 5 days, Obama will win at least one of the two big states on March 4^th, effectively ending Clinton’s run for the presidency.  So this begs the question: how did Clinton lose?

Why Clinton Lost

1. She never created a candidate difference. Clinton’s inability to substantively differentiate herself from Obama was devastating for her campaign, especially so over the last 30 days. This is branding 101: find a way to tell consumers/voters why your product/you are superior. As soon as this became a personality contest she was toast.
2. She never gave voters a reason to vote for her. The Clinton team failed to give voters a rationale for her candidacy. As we have learned time and time again, people need to know why they should vote for a candidate. We never got a sense of Clinton’s vision for the future. I still to this day have no idea of where she wants to take this country. She started out as the anti-Bush and assumed that would be enough. It wasn’t.
3. She never defined herself. This one I blame almost entirely on the Clinton strategists. They assumed everyone already knew Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, many of those already-held associations were negative. Instead of “re-introducing” her to the country and defining her in a positive, future-oriented way, they assumed that just being “Hillary” was enough. It wasn’t.
4. She ran an incumbent campaign. This is part and parcel with #3. In a “change” election, team Clinton chose to roll her out as the incumbent. Every signal they sent was that she was the presumptive nominee and this primary was simply the last rung in the ladder to the presidency.
5. It’s the candidate, stupid. Simply said, Hillary was not a good presidential candidate. I want to emphasize something-it is not that voters couldn’t vote for a woman, it is that they couldn’t vote for this woman. She is not very good in debates or on the stump. She almost never tells engaging stories and when she shouts it sounds shrill. As we said in a recent post, elections are almost never about issues (the Civil War and Watergate being two notable exceptions); they are, instead,about personalities. Obama isthe more compelling personality. He’s connected with voters, and he’s likable. We always knew Clinton had a likeability problem but her strategists assumed that she would dominate the early caucuses and primaries, thereby establishing an insurmountable lead and propelling her to victory. But that balloon popped when she lost Iowa…and so did her campaign.
6. Obama forged a winning coalition early on. Yes, today Obama is drawing from a wide swath of Democratic and Independent sub-groups. At the start, however, it was his ability to forge a minimum winning coalition of blacks, young voters, men, independents and upper-income voters that gave Obama his early victories.
7. Obama derailed the Clinton campaign in Iowa and they never recovered. Clinton has been playing defense for three months, and if you are not playing offense you are losing. While the media has paid a lot of attention to Obama’s reaching outside his coalition to win a greater share of whites-and especially white females-since the Potomac Primary, Obama actually bested Clinton among white voters in Iowa, 33% - 27%. With whites representing 93% of the Democratic Caucus in Iowa, winning the white vote was essential to his victory. Here are several factors that together seemed to drive this outcome:
   1. It’s a caucus state. Obama has swept all the caucuses save Nevada because of a far superior stump speech and an overwhelming edge in support among precinct-level party leadership, which historically has been critical in the caucus format. Hillary has also argued-not that it’s any help-that the caucus system makes it difficult for the blue-collar workers who are the backbone of her coalition to participate.
   2. Fifty-seven percent of Iowa Democratic caucus-goers were participating in a Presidential caucus for the first time. Seventeen percent were 17 - 24 years old. Obama was able to energize a young, newly-political segment of voters with his message of transcending traditional politics.
   3. At the time of the Iowa caucus, the Iraq War was still a front-of-mind issue for many voters. Exit polls show 35% of Democrats cited it as the most important issue, tied for first with the economy, and Iowa Democrats are famous peaceniks. Hillary’s vote to authorize the resolution for military intervention in Iraq was a dominant part of the conversation at the time.
   4. Hillary’s greatest strengths are her campaign organization and the Clinton name recognition. But Iowa was the one early state where these factors were least influential. Bill chose not to campaign in Iowa in ‘92 and Iowa was the early state where the Clinton machine was most thin on the ground. Older Iowans have long memories and their lesser familiarity-and perhaps slight feelings of being snubbed-with the Clintons may have hurt her.
8. Once it became a two-way race it was essentially over. The disappearance of John Edwards helped solidify Obama’s position. Edwards could have been the Democratic Mike Huckabee by splitting Obama’s core constituencies (blacks and young people). As the boost in Obama’s support after he quit the race proves, Edwards was closer to Obama than he was to Clinton. Even if he didn’t win Iowa as Huckabee did, a stronger showing would have taken votes directly from Obama and possibly allowed a Clinton victory.
9. South Carolina is the new New Hampshire. SC sealed the deal. The reason Obama won South Carolina is quite simple: black voters turned out in droves to support him. Fifty-five percent of Democratic primary voters were black, an unprecedented 12 point spread over whites. He won 78% of the black vote to Clinton’s 19%; again, an unprecedented margin of victory. In a state long-maligned for questionable identity politics in campaigning, it seems that for the first time the candidate associated with the racial minority was the beneficiary. Edwards’s participation helped Obama. Edwards was able to win the white vote 40% - 36% over Clinton in his home state’s backyard, and he blocked any chance of her making up the difference among white voters.
10. Super Tuesday was Hillary’s final shot. Once Hillary failed to land a knockout blow on Super Tuesday her prospects were bleak. The subsequent caucuses/primaries were tailor-made for Obama from a demographic/attitudinal perspective, and she lacked the resources and organization to change the game.

Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton by Steve Lombardo
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While it may have been the biggest political news of the weekend, the impact of Ralph Nader’s entry into the 2008 election process is likely to be negligible.  There are three reasons:
 
1. Nader’s vote share dropped dramatically from 2000 to 2004, and there is no reason to think he will re-capture that in 2008.  In 2000, Nader was a relatively serious force, capturing 4% of the vote.  Exit polls show he received 5% of the 18-29 vote, 6% of the “liberal” vote, and 15% of the vote from those who voted for an independent candidate in ’96.  He also got 7% of the non Judeo-Christian vote and 7% of the atheist/agnostic vote, and 6% among those who never attend church.  Having said that, the exit poll data suggested he took evenly from both Bush and Gore, though it’s clear that Nader hurt Gore in some important states (i.e. Florida).

And in 2004 Nader received only 1% of the vote, getting above 1% with only three sub-groups: Hispanics (2%) and those who did not vote or voted for an independent candidate in ’00 (2% respectively).  He was a non-factor. 
 
      Vote Totals 
  
      2004:
      Bush      51%
      Kerry     48
      Nader     1
 
      2000:
      Gore      48%
      Bush      48
      Nader     4

2. His moment has passed.  Fewer and fewer voters recognize him as a consumer advocate.  More importantly, there is a general sense by those who do know him that he is not to be taken seriously.  

3. Angry voters have other places to go.  Both Obama and McCain are magnets for disenfranchised voters.  

The only way that Nader becomes a potential election-changer is if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, and even that might be a stretch.

Tags: 2000 Election, 2004 Election, 2008 General Election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Ralph Nader by Steve Lombardo
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Hillary Clinton lost last night’s debate (and perhaps the nomination).  That much was clear when, 25 minutes into the debate, she passed on a golden opportunity to differentiate herself from Obama on the economy.  If there are no qualitative, issue-based differences between the two candidates (and perhaps there aren’t) then this becomes purely a personality campaign.  And as our post yesterday noted she has already lost that contest.  A few things to note:

1. The polls in both Texas and Ohio appear to be closing.  In Ohio, Hillary has a 6-8 point lead (it was 10-15 points last week) and Texas is now too close to call. 
2. Obama is not a terrific debater.  Sure, he has some good moments but at other times he’s fairly stiff.  He is far better at delivering speeches.
3. Last night reinforced something that’s been obvious for much of this campaign…Clinton is not effective in attack mode.  It hasn’t worked in her paid advertising and it didn’t work in the debates.  She was grasping at straws with weak comparatives in  her ads and in the debates she’s just come off as shrill.

Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton, New Polling Data by Steve Lombardo
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Just to divert your attention (for only a moment) from the McCain furor, we decided to take a look at favorability ratings of the current presidential candidates to see how they compared historically.  Fortunately we have fresh data from a poll released today by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics. 

The results give us some insight into Hillary’s likeability deficit and how it is impeding her hopes for securing the nomination. 

The poll shows Obama with a 54% favorability rating (33% have an unfavorable impression of him).  McCain (pre-NYT story) has a similar ratio with a favorable/unfavorable rating of 52%/33%.  Both have a net positive favorability rating of approximately +20. 

Clinton, on the other hand, has a net negative favorability rating (-6).  Only 45% of the electorate has a favorable impression of Clinton, while 51% are unfavorable toward her.  While she does well among Democrats, it is among self-described Independents where she is losing ground.  Obama’s favorability rating among Independents is 54%…Clinton’s is just 38%. 

Four years ago Bush had a 52% favorable rating (a net positive of +12) in early March and Kerry had a net positive rating of +19. 

It is awfully difficult to become your party’s nominee when more than half of Independents have an unfavorable impression of you.  People vote for people.  And many voters have decided that they do not like Hillary Clinton. 

Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, New Polling Data by Steve Lombardo
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While everyone is focusing on the reasons for the Clinton implosion (the strategy was poor, they should not have skipped caucuses and small primary states, her ads were awful, Bill injected race into the campaign in South Carolina…and hundreds of others) the fact is that Barrack Obama may just simply be a better candidate.  Elections are almost never about issues (the Civil War and Watergate being two notable exceptions); they are, instead, about personalities.  Obama is the more compelling personality.  He’s connected with voters, and he’s likable.  We always knew Clinton had a likeability problem but we assumed that she would dominate the early caucuses and primaries, thereby establishing an insurmountable lead and propelling her to victory.  But that balloon popped when she lost Iowa…and so did her campaign.  In the end, I think we will look back at South Carolina as the big turning point.

Yesterday, Obama proved that he is now cutting into Clinton’s core vote — white women, lower-income voters, self identified Democrats and union households.  As you can see from the attached graph, Obama nearly split the vote among white women.  The fact is that he is expanding his coalition with each passing contest while hers is deteriorating. 

As I said last week, it may be too early to bury the Clinton campaign…but we just got a lot closer. 

Tags: Democratic Primary by Steve Lombardo
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While Texas and Ohio loom on March 4th as the real “Super Tuesday” of the Democratic nominating process, Wisconsin may be the true tipping point in the race.  While team Hillary will never say it, they desperately want to win or come close otherwise momentum will be decidely with Obama over the next two weeks.  Barring a game- changing event in this week’s debate–or some other free media gaffe–the media will continue giving Obama good press…leaving the Clinton campaign with little room to change the storyline.  The latest polls in Wisconsin generally show Obama with a 5-10 point lead (our average of the last 10 public polls has Obama up 8).  Some are even higher.  The demographics in WI favor Clinton but Obama is likely to win by 8-10.  If this does occur, it will make Texas and OH much harder.  And if Obama does win handlily then it will mean that he is splitting (or winning) amond women — a very bad harbinger for Clinton. 

Tags: Democratic Primary by Steve Lombardo
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