Another former DNC chairman, Paul Kirk, Jr., has endorsed Barack Obama. Kirk is a superdelegate,
but far more important is the message his endorsement (and that of former DNC chairman Joe Andrew yesterday) sends to the
other supers. DNC chairmen think, eat, and breathe politics 24 hours a day (unlike senators, who sometimes get a break
to legislate or filibuster).
Nobody takes that job for the money (it pays only
$105,000
a year). DNC chairs care about only one thing: winning elections.
The other supers will pay attention to these endorsements more than those of random congressmen.
Hillary Clinton's highest profile endorser recently is Gov. Mike Easley (D-NC)
While that may have some impact in the upcoming
North Carolina primary, Easley is not a national figure like Kirk and Andrew.
Guam caucused today to choose its eight pledged delegates (each with half a vote) to the DNC. Early
reports
suggest that Obama and Clinton will each get four delegates.
Guam also has five superdelegates, each with a full vote.
Today's special election in LA-06 is being watched with bated breath.
The seat is open because Richard Baker (R) resigned from the House to take a multimillion dollar job as a lobbyist
for the hedge fund industry. This Baton Rouge-based district has a PVI of R+7 so the normal procedure for elections here
is that the candidates show up, the Republican wins and goes off to Washington, the Democrat sulks off licking his
wounds, and it's back to business as usual. Only this time the DCCC has poured
$1.2 million into the
race for Democrat Don Cazayoux and the NRCC has poured a comparable amount in for Republican Woody Jenkins.
Most of the ads are negative. Jenkins' ads call Cazayoux (rhymes with "tax you") a "liberal" and try to tie him to
the national Democratic party so everyone is watching closely to see if the old magic still works in the deep south.
A poll released yesterday put Cazayoux ahead of Jenkins 50% to 41%.
While LA-06 is the only House race today, there are 435 of them in November and CQ Politics has an
excellent rundown of the key races in the
Northeast,
Midwest,
South,
and
West.
The pollsters who run the most state polls are Rasmussen and SurveyUSA. If you want to see what Scott Rasmussen
looks like, look at the video analysis on this page.
We have a new batch of primary polls from Indiana and North Carolina today.
It looks like Barack Obama will win North Carolina by single digits (down from double digits a few weeks ago).
It also looks like Hillary Clinton will win Indiana by single digits. A few weeks ago, Indiana looked like a tie.
All in all, Clinton has improved her standing in both states.
State
Pollster
End date
Clinton
Obama
Indiana
ARG
May 01
53%
44%
Indiana
IPFW
Apr. 30
52%
45%
Indiana
Insider Advantage
May 01
47%
40%
Indiana
Rasmussen
Apr. 29
46%
41%
Indiana
TeleResearch
Apr. 29
48%
38%
Indiana
Zogby
May 01
42%
42%
North Carolina
ARG
May 01
41%
52%
North Carolina
Insider Advantage
May 01
44%
49%
North Carolina
Mason-Dixon
Apr. 29
42%
49%
North Carolina
Rasmussen
May 01
40%
49%
North Carolina
Research 2000
May 01
44%
51%
North Carolina
Zogby
May 01
34%
50%
We have a new general election poll in New York. Both Democrats beat McCain easily here.
State
Clinton
McCain
Start
End
Pollster
New York
60%
31%
May 01
May 01
Rasmussen
State
Obama
McCain
Start
End
Pollster
New York
52%
35%
May 01
May 01
Rasmussen
The polling results for all primaries and caucuses are available as a
Web page
and in
.csv format.
Besides Kirk's announcement mentioned above, several other supers went public yesterday, netting Clinton
about two delegates.
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