Clinton Leads In IA, NH, TX, AR In New ARG Poll

I am surprised (0.00 / 0)

Edwards is not doing better in Texas.

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by: David Mauro @ Sat Mar 24, 2007 at 03:02:29 AM UTC

TX... (0.00 / 0)

Texas would seem to be a better state for Edwards than for Obama. Edwards has not done well in many state polls beyond IA and NH though and Obama has a lot more buzz.

BlueSunbelt.Com Netroots for the Sunbelt states robwire.com My personal blog

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by: rob @ Sat Mar 24, 2007 at 16:25:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I go with this (5.00 / 1)

If polling is the same come primary day, I will vote for Obama over Edwards in hope that someone besides Hillary gets the nomination

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by: trowaman @ Sat Mar 24, 2007 at 22:12:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ditto that (0.00 / 0)

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by: Wanderer @ Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 15:31:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Methodology (0.00 / 0)

link

Sample Size: 600 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of likely Democratic primary voters living in Texas (460 Democrats and 140 independent voters).

Sample Dates: March 16-19, 2007

Margin of Error: ± 4 percentage points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion is evenly split.

Question Wording:

If the 2008 Democratic presidential preference primary were being held today between (names rotated) Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barak Obama, and Bill Richardson, for whom would you vote?

Would you say that you definitely plan to vote in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, that you might vote in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, or that you will probably not vote in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary?

It's hard enough to get Democrats to vote in the primary, so I'm not sure why they decided to poll independents for 1/4 of the sample.

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by: George @ Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 16:45:56 PM UTC

Interesting (0.00 / 0)

its hard to identify independent voters in Texas since we have an open primary system.

I wonder if these were self-identified independents or if they were voters with no primary history or what.

The more independents, as of right now at least, the more it should help Obama and Edwards I would think.

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by: David Mauro @ Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 16:57:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What's an independent? Who votes in a D Primary? (3.00 / 1)

I've studied voter turnout in Travis County over the last four cycles, and it has been steady that about 20% of the voters each cycle have never before voted in a Democratic Primary. 

Legally the only definition we have of "Democrat" is the fact they have previously voted in a primary.

If the pollster is going to use a responent's self professed "partisan" label, you get a radically different group of people.  There are folks who ALWAYS vote for Democrats who tell you they are "Independent", and people who'll self ID as a Democrat, that never vote in a Primary.

So I'm always questioning a polls use of the word "independent".  It's radically different group of folks.

Moreover, just the fact that in a presidential primary year the voter turnout doubles, you're going to get a bunch of voters who haven't voted in a primary before.  So are these votes in 2008 true "independents" or just lazy "Democrats"?

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by: Glen Maxey @ Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 17:37:56 PM UTC

Hard to tell how they did the party ID (0.00 / 0)

They are specifically asking 'are you going to vote in the dem primary?' If they are calling unfiltered RDD, they must have made a lot of calls to find the <7% of registered voters who voted in the Dem presidential primary last time.

FWIW, the GOP version only has about half as many Ind voters.

ARG does break down the poll between the Dem and Ind responses. Clinton is about even in both, Edwards and Richardson only get a fraction of the Dem vote that they do of the Ind vote, while Obama does three times better among Dems.

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by: George @ Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 18:23:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks to all our volunteers! (0.00 / 0)

Sen. Obama is polling strong in Texas, and that's no accident.  We've got folks in every region of Texas working hard to bring a fresh voice to Washington.  We hosted the biggest rally in the country this year, and we're just getting started!

For those good folks who aren't yet sold on Sen. Obama yet, please feel free to swing by our March Meetup.

Where: Scholz's Garten
Whern: Saturday (3/31) at 2:30pm

You'll have the opportunity to ask Obama supporters why they're so excited, and you'll also get to watch a live webcast from the Senator.  Decide for yourself whether you think Sen. Obama has what it takes to be our next president.

We also look forward to working with our Democratic brothers and sisters to elect a Democrat against John Cornyn in 2008.  Cornyn is vulnerable, and we'll do our best to bring new voters to the polls who are hungry for change.

Keep hope alive!  Obama '08!
www.texansforobama.com

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by: Texans for Obama @ Sun Mar 25, 2007 at 19:43:32 PM UTC

Obama has the momentum (0.00 / 0)

I'm not surprised Obama is doing so well in TX.  He has the momemtum and will receive more support after the April debate.  Keep hope alive!!

David
Cleanair999@Yahoo.com

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by: David Kobierowski @ Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 09:23:34 AM UTC

Polls (0.00 / 0)

I don't know why anyone would care what any polls are saying right now.  This time in 2003 Joe Lieberman was leading most Democratic Primary polls and we all know what we ended up with.

I think we should all just stay calm and wait.  Gore may jump in and throw the whole thing out of whack even more.  Heck someone else might jump in that no one is even thinking of. 

Should Texas move its primary to Feb. 5 you'll see more and more candidates through here and that could change a lot of things.

Money is drying up fast though, just as Vilsack. 

TMH

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

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by: Todd Hill @ Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 13:15:06 PM UTC

And this is why... (0.00 / 0)

...you pick who YOU want to win. People pay too much attention to polls and rather than think for themselves, they vote based on poll data.

I had every media outlet and early primary state telling me that Kerry was our nominee by the time Texas got a chance to vote in 2004, but I still voted for Dean. And had more people voted for who they wanted to vote for, without fear of voting for a "loser", then we may have had a different nominee in 2004.

So in 2008, I say vote for who you think is the best nominee. Screw the polls and pundits.

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by: John McClelland @ Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 15:39:47 PM UTC

Only the Iowa and New Hampshire numbers are even marginally (1.00 / 1)

relevant (and even those numbers are only barely relevant at all).

The campaigns have not even been rolled out in Texas or Arkansas.

This polling indicates only three things (which you probably didn't need a poll to tell you anyway): 

(1) Biden, Dodd, Gravel, Kucinich, and Richardson need to get something going in Iowa or New Hampshire (preferably both) very. very soon or they cannot hope to win.  Look for a candidate or two to drop out after the March 31 reporting deadline.  I think Gravel and Kucinich are only in this race to affect the course of the debate (and I don't mean this as an insult, I love Kucinich) so I don't necessarily expect either of them to drop out, but Biden's vanity campaign has got to be getting expensive for him, and Richardson had stayed in long enough to ensure his hat is in the ring for VP consideration so I think Biden or Richardson will be the next one out (the DLC has already put all its chips in the Hillary basket so neither of these DLCers had a chance anyway).

(2) Clark needs to declare sooner rather than later.  I used to think he might be able to wait until Memorial Day, but with the low number of undecided voters and the fact that none of the second-tier candidates is succeeding at chipping into the Clinton-Edwards-Obama lead, I no longer think Clark can wait that long.

(3) Clinton isn't "leading" in Iowa - Edwards and Clinton are both well within the statistical margin of error from each other at the front (but Obama's disappointing performance in Iowa seems odd even taking the margin of error into account).

Never forget that at this stage during the last election cycle, the media had already concluded that the election would be between Gephardt and Dean.

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by: SouthTexasDemocrat @ Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 16:09:40 PM UTC