Closing the Gap

It's really interesting how effective a campaigner Obama is. Hillary had a pretty wide lead in Ohio and Texas just two weeks ago. Now, Obama is in a statistical tie in Texas (he's even ahead in the latest ARG poll) and he's narrowed the gap considerably in Ohio.

From pollster.com here is the Ohio race. SUSA (so far this primary season the most accurate) has Obama going from 9 down to 6 down. Rassmusen has the margin dropping from 14 to 8 to 5. Quinnipiac has the longest history (26-20-11) but they don't have a result after Feb 23.

The Texas numbers are here (also pollster.com). Again, you can see a really sharp dramatic rise in Obama's numbers as his name recognition grows throughout late 2007 and early 2008. Also interesting is that there's a fairly steep decline for Hillary right after Super Tuesday. She's accually fallen behind in the composite numbers. The latest Fox, Zogby, SUSA and ARG polls all have Obama ahead.

Keep this in mind. When looking at polls, you shouldn't really compare nubers from various polls against eachother. Often they are quite different in selection of the participants, the actual questions asked, etc. Those differences can create different results, even when the questions are superficially similar. What is informative though are trend lines of each polling outfit against itself. The methodology and questions of, say, an SUSA poll do not vary over a race. So while they are frequently wrong as to the absolute state of the race, they accurately reflect the dynamics of the race. And in both OH and TX the dynamics are decidedly on Obama's side. He has been notching up solid gains in both states, and it looks like he will contest them both.

If I were to guess, I'd think that I think he'll win both. Honestly I do. A win in both would really be a knockout blow. If Hillary wins both, we have a contest again. Then she can say she has a legitimate claim to being the best candidate, and gets a major upset to set up for Pennsylvania in April. If they split them, I think it still goes to Obama, especially if his lead in Super Delegates continues to expand.

Ok, that's all the horserace coverage for today. Have a good weekend.