Winning Pennslyvania But Losing the Nomination
Tomorrow, Hillary Clinton will win the PA Democratic primary and effectively lose her party’s nomination for President. Our LCG regression trend analysis suggests a 4-point Clinton victory. Assuming undecided voters break for her by a margin of 65-35, her victory could be in the 6-9 point range. As we have said before, Clinton needs to win by 15+ points to effectively lay claim to the idea that Obama is an unelectable general election candidate. Therefore, absent a surprising surge for Clinton, her battle for the nomination will be over tomorrow night. Whether she decides to carry on will be a question for another day.
While Obama dominates in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Clinton will do well in the Western part of the state and in the area between the two urban centers. The true battlegrounds will be Allentown and Lancaster and, while they lean Clinton, Obama could cut her lead by over-performing in these two areas.
In some respects Clinton has been hurt by the long campaign and might have been better off if it had come more quickly on the heels of OH and TX. The six weeks in between gave Obama the time to use his fundraising and organizational advantage to narrow the gap.
Obama went negative over the weekend with ads attacking Clinton’s health care plan and suggesting that she was beholden to special interests. This suggests that the Obama campaign’s internal polling may have shown the race tightening.
As in Ohio and Texas Obama has outspent Clinton 3 to 1. He has dominated the airwaves. However, there is little doubt that the “bitter/clinging” comments thwarted his ascent. Up until that time, the Clinton drop was very steep; it seemed to level off a bit over the last seven days.
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