Can Clinton reduce Obama’s margin to single digits?
Adding the latest polls to the collection of North Carolina polls, I’ve come up with the following projections.
Barack Obama 52.05
Hillary Clinton 38.37
Clinton seems to well on her way to reducing Obama’s margin to single digits. However, with more resources Obama could very well push his margin to over 15%. Clinton cannot afford to be on the receiving end of a complete blowout.
Clinton doing better in North Carolina
Adding the latest polls to the collection of North Carolina polls, I’ve come up with the following projections.
Barack Obama 51.09
Hillary Clinton 38.66
Clinton seems to be doing a bit better in North Carolina, although the polls keep swinging all over the place. Perhaps my prediction that the best Clinton could do was to get Obama’s lead down to 12-13% was misplaced. There is still an outside chance that Clinton can get Obama’s lead into single digits.
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Obama is still doing better against McCain than Clinton
My new national projections (last poll ending April 10th) are:
John McCain 46.81
Barack Obama 43.21
John McCain 47.81
Hillary Clinton 41.02
Obama is still doing better against McCain than Clinton, though I still believe that Hillary would be the more formidable opponent. However, McCain cannot be complacent and needs to move to the centre on economic policy, while stressing his economic credentials.
Is this a modest blip or the start of something bigger ?
Over the past few days the Intrade odds on Hillary getting the Democratic nomination have tightened from 12% to 15%. Although this may not seem very much it was the first break in a long trend which has seen punters desert Hillary in droves. From a technical viewpoint this does seem important. For the first time since early March when she has broken through her 20 day moving average (although she has fallen back slightly). I also believe that Obama’s latest gaffe about people ‘clinging to religion’ brings all the issues about his electability to the fore and enables Hillary to re-make the populist argument that the revelations about Mark Penn and her tax returns seemed to have buried. From both a technical and fundamental viewpoint, I believe that Hillary is be worth a punt.
Obama too close to Clinton for comfort
Adding the latest poll to my collection produces the following projections:
Hillary Clinton 47.05
Barack Obama 42.53
Hillary really needs to try something radical, like attacking him over Wrightgate, or re-airing the 3am ad to try to get her lead into double digits. Even though my gut tell me that the polls are underestimating the number of silent Hillary supporters to the tune of 4-5%, she has to try mixing the contest up otherwise she’ll get high single digits, which will be insufficient for her to continue.
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Hillary doing well but not well enough
Adding the latest poll to my collection produces the following projections:
Hillary Clinton 47.20
Barack Obama 41.06
Like the last set of projections, these figures confirm that although Clinton has a confortable lead, she needs to increase it further to keep her in the contest.
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Afrer a turbulent day, some good news for Hillary
The Pennsylvania polls seem to be all over the place at the moment, with Survey USA giving Hillary a 18 (!) point lead and Rasmussen giving her only 5 points. However, Hillary’s vote has recovered from the polls which were putting her neck and neck with Obama, so she still stands a good chance of covering the 10 point ’spread’ that would enable her to continue (and even the 12 point spread that would enable me to catch up with Ladbrokes.
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Would a Clinton/Obama ticket (or an Obama/Clinton) ticket keep the peace?
One of the most intruiging ideas is the idea of a Clinton/Obama unity ticket, which has been floated by some of Clinton’s former staff members. The rationale goes is that if Clinton is elected she will need Obama’s African-American support while Obama can’t win without Clinton’s blue collar and Latino voters. There is also the more cynical possibility that unless both Clinton and Obama are on the ticket in some form or another the supporters of the losing candidate will deliberately sabotage the campaign of the nominee. I have to say that I am very sceptical. Hillary Clinton has said too many bad things about Obama to credibly serve as her running mate. Indeed, John McCain could run a string of commericals on Clinton’s comments about Obama’s ability to serve as a commander-in-chief alone.
The idea of Clinton/Obama is a bit more plausible. However, Hillary would be best advised to choose Sanford Bishop or Harold Ford Jr to keep the African-American vote on board or even to choose Ken Salazar and hope that whatever support she loses among African-Americans is balanced by the increased Latino turnout and support in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Of course, Clinton (or Obama) may be under incredible pressure to choose a unity ticket from party bigwigs, although I doubt that it would really be a dealbreaker for delegates. My guess is that the chances of a ‘dream ticket’ is about 20%. If you do want to bet on such a ticket I would advise you to bet on Obama and Clinton individually rather than the specific 3/1 (4.00) bet offered by Ladbrokes (Ladbrokes offer 3.5/1 (4.50) if you bet individually), which also insures you against the (tiny) chance of a ‘draft Gore’ movement.
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Cllinton is doing well in Obama’s back yard.
I’ve come up with the following projections for Indiana.
Hillary Clinton 52.05
Barack Obama 44.34
With Hillary looking increasingly likely to get a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania, and to get crushed in North Carolina, Indiana seems to be the most important state in the contest. Currently, she enjoys a solid lead in the Hoosier State.
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The ’smart money’ is still more convinced by Clinton’s electability.
Comparing the prices on intrade.com for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to be both president and nominee continues to throw up some interesting results (as before all prices are last traded prices):
Hillary Clinton: 8.9 / 13.7 = 64.96% chance of being elected if nominated.
Barack Obama: 50.4 / 85.4 = 59.02% chance of being elected if nominated.
Therefore the betting markets seem to be more positive about Clinton’s chances than those of Barack Obama. Personally, I still believe that Obama has about a 10% chance of beating McCain (maybe more if he makes a smart VP choice and McCain picks badly) while Hillary Clinton ticket has about 40% chance of beating the Senator from Arizona after ’snipergate’ and Carville’s antics. This is because of many reaons, such as; experience, connections with blue-collar voters, experience (snipergate nothwistanding) and foreign policy stance.
Unlikely, but possible.
Given that the chances of Obama and Clinton winning the nomination are about 50%, there has been a lot of talk about a ‘dream ticket’ of Obama and Clinton together. The idea is that this would add experience and the Latino vote to the ticket and help him in the North-East. However, my view is that although it would be better to have Hillary attacking the Republicans and it would probably reduce the chances of a McCain blowout, it would probably also shore up McCain’s base, while doing little to energise blue collar voters. Such a ticket would have a 10% chance of a victory rather than the 15-20% chance that an Obama/Sibelius or Obama/Webb ticket would have. I also think that Barack Obama doesn’t want to have the Clinton on his ticket after Ferraro’s coments. I would put the chances at no more than 10%.
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