Latest Gallup Tracking Poll: Obama, Clinton Now in Dead Heat

(Mr. Davis is a longtime friend, supporter and fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s, D-N.Y., presidential campaign.)

In the three-day Gallup Poll of 1,252 Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters from Thursday-Saturday, April 17-19, with a narrow +/- margin of error of 3 percent, Hillary Clinton has now pulled statistically even with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). As of Friday night, April 18, the three-day tracking poll showed Sen. Clinton also in a statistical dead heat (with Sen. Clinton +1 percent, 46-45 percent, over three days of calling,between April 17-19).

Overall, this represents a dramatic drop by Sen. Obama among Democrats and independent leaners of about 9 percent in less than a week — a drop that Gallup says began just before the recent ABC debate and continued and has leveled off as of Saturday.

This, after Gallup has headlined for weeks that Sen. Obama had gained a steady lead over Sen. Clinton nationally among Democrats and independent-leaners — indeed, Gallup says this is the firs time since mid-March that Obama has not been in the lead.

(“Tracking” polls are generally regarded as the most reliable of polling techniques to describe trends between two candidates, since the technique is to call about the same random sample of voters every night, adding the last three nights and dropping the prior fourth night. In the highly respected Gallup tracking poll, Gallup is calling 1,000 voters each night, out of whom about 400 identify themselves as Democrats or independent-leaning Democratic voters, giving a relatively high three-day total of 1,200 Democratic voters [and thus the small +/- variance of 3 percent.])

When Obama took a lead of +11 percent in this same tracking poll as recently as a little over a week ago and maintained it, most print journalists in the mainstream media covering the campaign and certainly every cable TV evening news and pundit show made a big deal and headlined this lead as establishing that Sen. Obama had just about wrapped up the nomination. This was not coincidentally accompanied by the Obama campaign spreading that message all over, and stirring its surrogates to call upon Sen. Clinton to give it up, even before the Pennsylvania primary.

So now my question and challenge is to the national media covering the campaign, and especially to the cable TV shows — from the “Situation Room” on CNN to the persistently and unashamedly pro-Obama MSNBC nightly cable TV hosts to The New York Times and other national political reporters: Will you headline the current apparent decline of Barack Obama’s national Democratic Party strength and the Hillary Clinton surge within the last week alone — or not?

Sure, I am a partisan of Sen. Clinton and I can be accused of using the word “decline” and “surge” motivated to help her make the case to superdelegates that she is the stronger candidate against John McCain. But forget about my admitted bias (I call it conviction) that Sen. Clinton is the far stronger Democratic candidate against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). And I ask the pro-Obama cable TV talk show hosts — the most admittedly biased of all being Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s “Hardball” — will you at least have objective and neutral analysts to analyze what has happened to Barack Obama’s standing among Democrats in the last two weeks — and what has happened to Sen. Clinton’s? A 9-point drop in such a short period of time by Sen. Obama — or, from Sen. Clinton’s perspective, an 11-point gain — in a tracking poll is, by any standard of the polling profession, extremely and unusually large.

It could be an aberration. Sen. Obama’s slight improvement from Friday night’s three-day results to Saturday night’s (from -1 percent to Sen. Clinton to +2 percent) shows that Friday night’s calls resulted in his winning that night’s calling by a good margin. We will have to wait a few more days to see if Sen. Obama resumes his prior substantial lead or whether things have just leveled off between the two. (Other news organizations, for example, such as Newsweek, still have Sen. Obama in a substantial double-digit lead among Democrats). But the Gallup tracking poll seems to be the most current, with the largest total calls and the smallest margin of error.

But it is just possible, just possible, that this is not an aberration. We shall see. It is just possible that those of us who have continually, over these many months, expressed concerns about Sen. Obama’s political weakness in the general election, as shown by his inability to win any major industrial state and especially his weakness in the key swing states Democrats must carry to win back the White House, may be right. And if the latter is the case, this is exactly the reason why Sen. Clinton should not allow herself to be pushed out of the race prematurely — and why superdelegates should not feel pushed into an artificial deadline to “decide” their vote.

And rather than pushing Sen. Clinton out of the race too soon, the grass roots of the party need to be allowed to express its wishes as to who it wants to be the nominee — and superdelegates, whether committed or not, need to keep their eyes on the big prize — winning back the White House. And to do so, they need to watch the results of the remaining primaries, the popular vote totals, the delegate vote totals and — especially —- on the national and state-by-state poll results before making a final decision.

Clinton Consistently Doing Better Than Obama Against McCain in Battleground States

Take a look at the state-by-state results comparing how Sen. Clinton is doing against Sen. McCain vs. Sen. Obama and the results are even scarier. In the national polls, with all the fearsome talk by the Obama campaign about Sen. Clinton’s “high negatives” and being a “polarizer” the latest Gallup tracking poll, again as of Saturday night, April 19, shows Sen. Clinton to be running dead even with Sen. McCain — actually, +1 percent, or 46 percent-45 percent — as is Sen. Obama (who is dead even at 45 percent-45 percent). Gallup points out that the trend has been slightly going against Obama, who had led McCain a week ago by a statistically insignificant +3 percent.

But at the same time he held that lead, state polls in Florida were showing him losing to Sen. McCain by a considerable margin while Sen. Clinton was slightly ahead; losing in Ohio by a small margin with Sen. Clinton ahead by a small margin; and — this the most shocking and scary of all for Democrats who want to win back the White House — in a virtual dead heat with Sen. McCain in the state of Massachusetts! (Sen. Clinton, who defeated Sen. Obama in the Massachusetts primary by about 15 percent, despite the endorsements of Sen.s Kerry and Kennedy and Governor Patrick, as well as Caroline Kennedy, is ahead of Sen. McCain in Massachusetts as well).

So what is my theory as to why Sen. Obama has dropped so significantly in the last week or two and Sen. Clinton has risen?

To repeat my caveat: polls are snapshots of a moving picture, and these latest Gallup tracking results could be aberrational. And I could be wrong about my assessment of the reasons for Sen. Obama’s apparent collapse in the last two weeks if it is a collapse at all. But here is my current operating theory:

I am not sure, but I believe the same uneasiness that I have increasingly felt over these last several weeks about Sen. Obama as our party’s candidate against Sen. McCain has been the case among other Democrats across the nation. The issues for me are a mix of things, some specific, some intangible: for example, the continuing uneasy over murky answers by Sen. Obama as to why he remained silent for so long in the face of Rev. Wright’s hateful sermons; the fact it took Sen. Obama so long to understand — if he does even today — why he offended so many rural and cultural conservative voters when he said they were “bitter” over the economy, and thus, they “clung” to guns and religion and anti-immigration sentiments as a result, rather than holding these views independent of frustration over the economy; and most recently, the Obama campaign’s over-reaction and criticism of the ABC moderators’ tough questions of Sen. Obama in the recent debate, and Sen. Obama’s (to me at least) apparently flippant and, yes I must use the word, arrogant reaction in referring to it in the days after (at one point he actually accusing Sen. Clinton of “twisting the knife”) — these and other negative impressions have caused me greater concern about Sen. Obama’s electability in a contest against Sen. McCain. And, it is just possible, I am not alone, and there are so many other Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents out there feeling the same way as I for many of the same reasons that it might explain Sen. Obama’s dramatic drop of over 10 percent in a tracking poll in a little more than a week.

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton remains dignified, virtually unflappable, focused on economic issues and health care, and showing continuing signs of strength in the Democratic Party’s core base ever since FDR— blue collar voters, workers, senior citizens, middle-class working women. She has come across as human, vulnerable, likable, and as always, commanding and mature on the issues. Of course, as I readily admit, I am biased: I think she is the best candidate and I think she would make a great president. So feel free to discount those positive impressions.

The Pennsylvania Primary

I don’t know whether Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton will win Pennsylvania and by what margin. I really don’t.

I only know that Sen. Obama has been outspending Sen. Clinton by as much as 2:1 or by some accounts 3:1 or more on TV ads and radio ads that, I am told, are running round the clock. I don’t buy the Obama-campaign created bar, bought by most of the media and pro-Obama punditry, that Sen. Clinton has to win Pennsylvania by double-digits. Such a bar doesn’t reflect the overpowering reality of being outspent on TV and radio (and much more, presumably, in direct mail and GOTV) by this margin — especially by round-the-clock unanswered negative attack TV and radio ads that the Obama campaign is running, many of them personal attacks on Sen. Clinton’s character.

In short: I hope Sen. Clinton wins, period, by any margin, and will be happy if she does and disappointed if she doesn’t.

But the big news in Pennsylvania, even if Sen. Clinton wins by a single-digit margin, will be in the exit polls demographic data. That is what everyone — especially superdelegates who care about winning back the White House — should focus on. If Sen. Obama loses Pennsylvania by whatever margin and, most important, if his demographic base is still the same as before — virtually all African-Americans, upper income liberal activist professionals, and college students — then the issue of electability should be even more of concern for Democrats.

No artificial deadline for superdelegates to decide is valid other than when they are convinced they have identified the strongest candidate to run against Sen. McCain. (Note to Howard Dean: When I wanted you to be public and forceful in mandating that Sen. Obama agree to an “re-vote” by mail and by firehouse in Michigan and Florida — which Sen. Clinton ultimately said she would favor — you were disappointingly unwilling. Now for some reason you are insisting that all superdelegates make up their minds immediately after the last primary. I would suggest, respectfully, that you revert to your previous silence and let each superdelegate, in conscience, decide for themselves who can best defeat Sen. McCain — and look to the national and state polls as one of the many ingredients of that important and complex decision).

So no we shall see: Will CNN, MSNBC, Fox and the ABC, NBC, and CBS network political correspondents headline the dramatic new Gallup tracking poll showing Sen. Obama’s dramatic drop? At least to the same extent as they headlined the +9 percent Obama advantage a little more than a week ago? And, more importantly, will they ask themselves, and their guests, why Sen. Obama has apparently gone through such a dramatic political decline (that is, assuming it is not aberrational)? And go out to the grassroots and do some hard reporting to figure this question out, rather than interviewing each other?

And if Sen. Obama loses Pennsylvania, will they focus on getting an answer to the question: How can Sen. Obama win in the more conservative general electorate if he hasn’t been able to win in the more liberal electorate of any major large industrial state in the nation — from Massachusetts to New Jersey to Ohio to California (and, perhaps after Tuesday night, to Pennsylvania)? Why has he lost? Outspending Sen. Clinton to such a degree on TV, why has he lost these states Democrats must win to win the presidency?

I may not have the answer right. But now it’s time for all the national political media in print and on broadcast and cable TV to start to press for answers — and not be intimidated by about criticism from the pro-Obama blogosphere because they are asking tough questions.