Looking Ahead, Obama Up 12 Points in New Oregon Poll
by Jonathan Singer, Tue May 06, 2008 at 11:19:24 AM EDT
Today is obviously election day in North Carolina and Indiana, but looking ahead to Oregon, which appears to be about the only remaining even medium-sized state after today's contests that will be seriously contested by both campaigns, new numbers show Barack Obama leading, though not overwhelmingly.
The first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Oregon Democratic Presidential Primary shows Barack Obama enjoying a twelve-point lead over Hillary Clinton. It's Obama 51%, Clinton 39%.Clinton has a statistically insignificant lead among senior citizens while Obama leads among younger voters. Obama does best among upper income voters while
Clinton's strongest support comes from those who earn less than $40,000 annually.
Obama is viewed favorably by 78% of the state's Likely Primary Voters, Clinton by 71%. Fifty percent (50%) of Obama voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton while 56% of Clinton voters hold a positive view of Obama.Eighty-two percent (82%) say that if Clinton is the nominee, they will vote for her over John McCain in the fall. An identical number, 82%, say they will vote for Obama over McCain.
At this point there simply is not enough public data available at this juncture to get a complete feel on the race in Oregon. SurveyUSA released two polls, one early in the month and one later on, showing Obama leading by 10 points and 6 points in the state, respectively. The more recent SUSA poll, in particular, doesn't exactly gibe with the results from Rasmussen (though differences in methodology as well as standard sampling errors might account for some of that.
For whatever it's worth, Rasmussen did better than any other pollster in nailing the gubernatorial race in Oregon in 2006, with its final poll showing Democratic incumbent Ted Kulongoski defeating his Republican challenger Ron Saxton 51 percent to 44 percent (the final spread was 51-43), so I'm not terribly inclined to write off these numbers. Nevertheless, it's probably worth waiting for at least another poll or two to emerge out of the state -- particularly polling conducted after today's results (though not too long after because balloting in Oregon has already started) -- before making a real hard prediction about the state of the race in the Beaver state.
Tags: Democratic primaries, Oregon, Oregon Primary (all tags)
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