New Poll Shows Clinton Up Big in Ohio

Submitted by Jeff on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 4:36pm.

SurveyUSA has released a new Ohio poll taken 2/10 and 2/11 and it shows Hillary Clinton with a big 17 point lead over Barack Obama among likely voters:

56% Clinton
39% Obama

Clinton is buoyed by a strong showing among women (62% to 33%), voters over 65 (64% to 30%), Democrats (58% to 37%), whites (62% to 32%), Hispanics (87% to 8%), and those for whom the economy is the top issue (60% to 35%). Obama is statistically tied among males (47% to 46%) but does extremely well among African Americans (73% to 24%) and fairly well among independents (48% to 42%). He is not significantly ahead among voters for whom Iraq is the top issue (48% to 46%).

49% of Clinton supporters say that they could change their minds, compared to 40% for Obama supporters.

This is a very tough poll for the Obama campaign, without a doubt. SurveyUSA is a fairly reliable outfit and the primary is only three weeks away. However, Obama has shown that he can move the numbers dramatically when he comes to a state and starts making personal appearances before large crowds.

UPDATE: Good analysis by Pho, and by Redhorse in the comments. Jerid's efforts to portray this poll as good news for Obama (in comments here and at Pho's place) show that he's letting his support for Obama loosen his grip on reality. It's one thing to support Obama, as Jerid and I both do, it's another to twist the facts beyond all recognition. Obama has a lot of work to do if these numbers are going to shift before OT Tuesday, and if Clinton and her surrogates campaign hard as expected it's a long shot for him to do better than cutting into Clinton's lead.

2nd UPDATE: Good discussion of this poll by Todd Beeton at MyDD as well. As he says, this poll represents Obama's low water mark, and Clinton's job is to keep the numbers as close to this as possible -- and the women's vote will be the battleground.

Hardly Bad News

Submitted by Jerid on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 5:14pm.

Obama's up 20 points from the last Ohio poll, while Hillary only got a bump of 11. I think this poll is great news for the Obama camp.

Anyone that expected Obama to be winning Ohio at this point in the game hasn't been paying attention to anything. He has a long road to go, but stuff like this poll show there's light.

I don't know if Ohioans are

Submitted by afcolumbus on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 11:55pm.

I don't know if Ohioans are aware, but a certain Senator from NY, while running for the Senate, promised upstate New Yorkers hundreds of thousands of jobs, upstate being economically devestated. We're still waiting, and people are still bailing out. Don't fall for it.

I think you're wrong

Submitted by Jeff on Wed, 02/13/2008 - 9:44am.

This poll is good news for Clinton, not for Obama. It was taken after Obama's victories on Saturday night and reflects that he has a long way to go, even in demographic categories in which he has done well in other states. Even his lead in the African American category is not as high as it has been elsewhere, sugggesting that Rep. Tubbs Jones' efforts are having an effect.

Tactically, you can argue that Obama doesn't have to win Ohio outright, he merely has to keep Clinton from winning big, and there is time left for him to do that. However, what would really help Obama (and the party, in a sense) is a knockout blow, as in winning Ohio outright, which would persuade superdelegates to switch over to him and party leaders to try to persuade Clinton to drop out.

There simply ain't a lot of light in this poll, and Clinton is going to have almost a week's head start campaigning here. I don't see how you can spin this as good news.

If that's reference to me (about expecting Obama to be winning at this point), I didn't expect that but I expected Obama to be closer than this poll indicates, based on his string of successes elsewhere and his momentum.