2 New Pennsylvania Polls

By Fester

I have long expected the Pennsylvania race to become more competive as I assume that campaigns will have some impact, especially when the policy profiles of the competing candidates are not wildly divergent and thus not immediately polarizing. The dynamic I expect in the state is for Obama to close and close hard, but to fall short by a couple of points at the end as he will have had to have closed a twenty point gap in six weeks.  I  think that the basic demographics in the state still favor Hillary Clinton but not by a whole lot. 

The first notable area of change in the race has been the increased size of the Democratic electorate universe.  Democrats have added roughly 5% to their rolls since January 1, 2008. The campaigns have been targetting new voters in high propensity to support their respective candidates demographics and also encouraging re-registrations of unaffiliated voters and marginal Republicans.  I would believe that since both campaigns have very good contact information on these voters and these voters have already been motivated to take the political action of registering/converting, these voters will come out at a higher proportional rate than the rest of the Democratic primary electorate. 

And we are starting to see the Obama close in two polls.  First, the reliable Survey USA poll has Hillary Clinton up by 12 points as of this weekend.  The previous poll, conducted a month ago had her up by 19 points.  The demographic groups are starting to resort themselves along the lines we expect --- women still strong for Clinton, men starting to shift towards Obama, Obama consolidating his lead among the African American voters, especially in SE PA, and the age gaps that we have previously seen.

Rasmussan came out with a much tighter poll showing Clinton up by 5 [h/t Balloon Juice] Their trend has been Obama closing by a couple of points per week over the past month.  They have not had a good primary season, so I am discounting this poll a little bit.  It also is not jibing with what I am hearing on the ground in SW PA. I am hearing movemement towards Obama, but SW PA is still a generically pro-Clinton electorate. 

So what will we see --- I think we'll see most polls showing a tightening race with either Rasmussan or Zogby showing a surprising Obama lead at the end, and then a tight Clinton victory on election night.  The one or two outlier polls will be spun as Clinton beating expectations and staging a dramatic come-back and then onto Indiana and North Carolina.  I still feel very comfortable with my prediction of 52:46 for Clinton.