Apr. 03

Senate map with polls Previous report Next report News: Updated Apr. 03 Both beat McCain ≥ 5% McCain beats both ≥ 5% Obama > Clinton by ≥ 5% Obama > Clinton by < 5% Clinton > Obama by < 5% Clinton > Obama by ≥ 5%   In brown states, Obama does better than Clinton against McCain. In pink states Clinton does better. Sometimes this means: does not lose as badly But white centers are statistical ties.

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News from the Votemaster

Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress yesterday that the country is probably already in a recession. This announcement is likely to have serious political ramifications. First, it will put the economy squarely in the middle of the election debate and cause the candidates to be peppered with more questions about the economy than about Iraq and other topics. Second, bad economic times generally help the Democrats as they are viewed as the party willing to actively take measures to create jobs (Obama has already proposed spending a lot of money on rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, for example). Republicans generally prefer to let market forces solve the problem (if many people are unemployed, wages will be forced down and companies will find it attractive to hire these new cheap workers, thus creating more jobs). Third, when someone gets laid off, he or she tends to look for someone to blame and more often than not it is the President and his party. You don't have to be Herbert Hoover to suffer political damage from a recession. This year all three factors help the Democrats in part because John McCain has never claimed economics as his forte. His strength is national security and to the extent people are worried about being fired rather than worried about a terrorist attack, they will look to the Democrats for answers.

Talking Points Memo has more on the Sirota race chasm story discussed here Tuesday.

One noteworthy item that has been under the radar is the slow but steady movement of the superdelegates towards Obama. The table below shows the estimates of various news sources of Barack Obama's lead over Hillary Clinton on March 6 (thus after the Texas and Ohio elections) and today. Two things stand out. First, the spread is much less. The various sources are beginning to converge on the same numbers as more and more superdelegates announce their positions. Second, Obama's lead is slowly but inexorably growing. His lead has grown by 30 in the past month. After Pennsylvania and North Carolina vote, it will probably still be something around 120-130 because Clinton's expected win in Pennsylvania is likely to be cancelled by Obama's expected win in North Carolina. CQPolitics has a story on the math. Bottom line: Obama has the holy trinity on his side: most delegates, most states, and most popular votes. To convince the remaining superdelegates to go for her, she has to take the lead in at least one of the categories by doing very well in the remaining primaries and caucuses.

No new primary polls today but one new general election poll shows both Clinton and Obama beating McCain in Pennsylvania, she 48% to 40% and he 43% to 39%.

The polling results for all primaries and caucuses are available as a Web page and in .csv format.

Here are the delegate totals from various news sources rounded to integers (Democrats Abroad has 22 delegates, each with 1/2 vote). The sources differ because in most caucus states, no delegates to the national conventions have been chosen yet, just delegates to the district, county, or state convention so there is some guesswork involved. Furthermore, some of the unpledged delegates are elected at state conventions in May or June. Finally, the PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) sometimes waver and may tell different reporters slightly different stories that they interpret differently.

Delegates

Needed to win: Democrats 2024, Republicans 1191.

Here is another source for delegate totals.

WWW www.electoral-vote.com