About three weeks ago, Hillary’s lead in the RealClearPolitics average was nine percent. Now it is 16 percent.
Madonna notes that from mid-February to mid-March, Obama lost ten points of favorability in a state in which he did only a little bit of campaigning. Some of that was due to sharper attacks from Hillary Clinton (particularly the “3 a.m.” ad), but a healthy chunk of is probably fallout from Wright. What’s more, it’s not clear how quickly Obama can earn back that trust. “His speech probably didn’t make much difference with the blue-collar, white, working-class Democrats — they’re more interested in ‘show me’,’ not ‘give me a speech.’”
A poster at the liberal blog MyDD broke down the Democratic electorate in Ohio into six different groups, adjusted the proportion to reflect the likely turnout in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary, and calculated a 57 percent to 43 percent victory for Hillary. ‘The analysis suggests that it is not unthinkable that Obama could win only one or two counties.
‘‘Obama has time to address the flaws in his campaigns’ pitch to those key demographics. But so far, Public Policy Polling has Obama losing the white-Democrat vote, 63 percent to 23 percent. Quinnipiac has Hillary leading among white voters, 61 percent to 33 percent.
A catastrophic loss among these groups would leave the super-delegates facing an even tougher choice than before, suggesting that Obama, the candidate most likely to finish with more regular delegates, cannot close the deal with key groups of Democratic voters, even with six weeks to hone his pitch.
