Has Obama Been Hurt by Jeremiah Wright and "Bitter-gate"? Not really.
“Not really” is not what you’d expect to hear, if you are reading about:
- the “problem” that Wright poses (according to this New York Times piece)
- the “threat to Obama’s ability to show that he could unify the Democratic Party” (again, the New York Times)
- the “damage to his presidential candidacy” (the Washington Post)
- the “troubling trends” (this post at the Washington Post’s Behind the Numbers blog)
- the “diminished aura of inevitability” inferred from this CBS/New York Times poll
Let’s leave aside the easiest rebuttals — namely that Behind the Numbers is cherry-picking recent polls and relying on the always-dubious “does X make you more or less favorable” question (they, of all people, should know better), and that the CBS/NYT poll’s real main finding is that Obama’s lead over Hillary has actually grown since the last CBS/NYT poll.
Instead, let’s take a more systematic look at the available data. First is this bravura graph from Seth Masket over at Enik Rising, comparing Obama’s performance in the OH and PA primaries among various demographic groups:
Even among those groups who should perhaps be most bitter over being called “bitter” — weekly church-attenders, union members, white Catholics — Obama loses only a few percentage points in PA relative to OH. Among every other group, he does better.
More importantly, look at the two graphs below: the national Obama-Clinton split and the Obama-McCain trial heat (both courtesy of pollster.com).
Obama’s lead over Clinton has actually gotten slightly larger in the last several weeks. Obama has also improved viz. McCain.
I assume a few other voices are shouting in the wilderness on this issue (Seth writes that Bill Schneider of CNN noted the lack of movement in the polls). But clearly the Gang of 500 hasn’t gotten the message. Perhaps we’re on the cusp of a real drop in the polls for Obama; if so, all the above quotes from our leading journalistic lights would be justified. But until then, the “problem” is in their eyes only.
Comments
Pretty. The first plot reminds me of a pair of graphs that Gary and I did for our 1993 paper. I like the method of looking at lots of overlapping subsets. (If I wanted to be really picky, I’d say the top graph should be square.)
Posted by: Andrew![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.themonkeycage.org/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 30, 2008 11:53 PM
The national polls are certainly part of the picture, but what about in the states? The general election is going to be waged in an undetermined number of battleground states, not nationwide.
You had my electoral college projections up about a month ago and that showed a tight contest between McCain and Obama (not so close between McCain and Clinton). Those electoral college outcomes have persisted in the weeks since. However, I had included all the polls since Super Tuesday and was treating them all equally.
When I weighted those state-level, head-to-head polls to give the more recent ones more significance, Obama’s numbers plummeted. He is on basically the same level as Clinton relative to McCain in the general election. Obama’s margins against McCain are still better than Clinton’s in a majority of the states, but where he has been hurt the most is in the toss up states.
The national polls matter, but in the states, especially the November toss ups, Obama has taken something of a hit. And the perception of that matters in the pursuit of superdelegates (despite what Claire McCaskill says).
Posted by: Josh Putnam | May 1, 2008 08:57 AM
Josh, I scrolled through the state tracking polls at Pollster, and I don’t see any consistent damage to Obama. In a few toss-up states (e.g., FL) it looks like McCain’s lead has grown. But in many others there’s been no significant change, or there’s just not enough polling to tell.
Posted by: John Sides | May 1, 2008 10:15 AM
John, I agree with you that there just isn’t enough polling data in some cases to give us a proper glimpse into whether this is consistent damage. However, without the February numbers propping him up, Obama is on the wrong side of the ledger (admittedly narrowly) in four states (MI*, NV, NH, NM) where he was running ahead of McCain when those polls were treated as being equal in value to the more recent ones.
Has it hurt Obama as much as the press is depicting it? No. But the information that has come to light since Texas/Ohio (Wright, “bitter-gate”, Wright 2.0, etc.) does have him on the losing end in a handful of these states where the margins were already razor thin (and continue to be…just not in Obama’s favor).
*Pollster’s data is more robust for Michigan than what Real Clear Politics has. Both have data the other doesn’t, so it may beneficial to combine the two sets of data.
Posted by: Josh Putnam | May 1, 2008 11:40 AM
The national polls are certainly part of the picture, but what about in the states? The general election is going to be waged in an undetermined number of battleground states, not nationwide.
General election polls aren’t credible at this point, I would think that lesson had been learned by now.
Most voters who are thinking about the presidential election today are thinking about the Democratic primary, and John McCain isn’t really a part of that discussion (the Republican fight is over). The general election is actually a completely separate event and is still 6 months away.
6 months before super Tuesday (when most voters had made up their minds), Rudy Giuliani was the uncontested favorite in the Republican race - McCain was 20 points behind him and losing support by the day.
At the same time Clinton the inevitable Democratic nominee, polling 20 points ahead of Obama and gaining strength every day - Obama’s numbers were flat until December.
Most voters don’t start making up their minds until the last weeks before the vote. You might as well be predicting the general election of 2012.
Posted by: Jinchi | May 4, 2008 03:09 PM