Parsing the Polls: Inside the '08 numbers

WP political blog, "The Fix," by Chris Cillizza
01/24/2007
Parsing the Polls: Inside the '08 numbers

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll pegged New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) as the leaders in the coming presidential nomination fights.

While polls this far out -- especially of a national sample rather than a pool of Iowa or New Hampshire voters -- function more a test of name identification than a predictor of the eventual nominee, a look beyond the topline numbers gives us a glimpse of voter perceptions about the best known candidates....

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Clinton appears to start the race in the pole position as she led Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) 41 percent to 17 percent. Former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) placed third with 11 percent.

Clinton's lead overall extends to most subgroups in the survey. A few are particularly interesting:

* Among non-white voters Clinton led Obama 56 percent to 16 percent. Cohen notes that "non white" encompasses African American, Hispanic, Asian and "other" voters, but the subgroup is dominated by black voters. In fact, if you combine black voters in the Post's December and January surveys, Clinton leads Obama among black voters 60 percent to 20 percent. Given that Obama is black and would be the first African-American elected president, it's somewhat surprising that the historic nature of his candidacy has not galvanized the black community. Of course there are two mitigating factors: First, former President Bill Clinton remains an iconic figure in the black community and some of his popularity appears to be wearing off on his wife. Second, Hillary Clinton remains a far better known commodity nationwide than Obama. As hard as it is to believe, there are still plenty of potential voters who know little or nothing about Obama; few people can say the same of Clinton.

* Clinton leads Obama among unmarried women 56 percent to 13 percent, while leading among married women by a far less impressive 41 percent to 23 percent. As the Post's Lois Romano explored in her story earlier this week, Clinton's campaign is putting considerable focus on wooing women with a message that she, like them, is a mother and a daughter. The numbers above suggest that the women's vote is quite nuanced. Clinton is seen as a iconic figure among younger women who admire her ability to balance her professional and private lives. Among women who have never been married she holds a 43 percent to 12 percent edge over Obama. Clinton's female contemporaries are more suspect about her motives (too cold? too calculating?), and represent a much more serious challenge for her campaign.

* The idea that Clinton has positioned herself as a moderate Democrat appears to be borne out in the survey. She holds her widest lead over Obama (54 percent to 16 percent) among self-identified conservative Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Her narrowest lead is among liberals, who favor Clinton over Obama 38 percent to 20 percent. Moderates favor Clinton 37 percent to 15 percent. Clinton has a right to feel good about her margins across the ideological spectrum but must watch her left flank carefully. The nomination fights tend to be dominated by liberal voters and she must find a way to convince this influential voting bloc that she -- not Obama, Edwards or even former Vice President Al Gore -- is best equipped to represent their interests in the general election....

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