A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll out today points to something that I have been saying for some time — a large portion of Senator Clinton’s supporters are not backing Senator Obama. All polling that I have seen since late February on suggest that anywhere between 20% and 40% plus of Clinton’s supporters in the primaries balk on voting for Obama. Covering and knowing the PUMA movement as I do, my view is that about a fifth to a quarter will actually vote for Senator McCain and another fifth likely to abstain or vote third party. This poll seems to indicate that I am not far off in my assessment.
Barack Obama’s lead in the presidential race has nearly disappeared, a combination of news from abroad, Republican attacks at home and Hillary Clinton voters who have not rallied behind Sen. Obama.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that as Democrats prepare to gather in Denver for their national convention next week, the Obama campaign’s biggest challenge may be attracting Sen. Clinton’s supporters to his campaign. Only half the people who voted for Sen. Clinton in the primaries said they are now supporting Sen. Obama. One in five is supporting Sen. McCain.
Overall, the poll finds the race a statistical dead heat, with 45% favoring Sen. Obama and 42% Sen. McCain. That three-point Obama advantage is down from six points a month ago, a trend found in other national polls as well. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Sen. McCain’s competitiveness comes as something of a surprise, given the advantages Democrats enjoy over Republicans this year. But over the past month, the McCain campaign has benefited from events in and outside of its control.
After wrapping up the nomination in March, the Arizona Republican appeared to languish for several months. His operation and his fund-raising lagged well behind Sen. Obama’s. Republicans outside the campaign griped about disarray and an unclear message. In response, the McCain campaign honed its rhetoric, turned sharply negative toward Sen. Obama and found an issue that resonates with voters: oil drilling.
In a barrage of attack ads, the McCain campaign has painted Sen. Obama as a celebrity who isn’t “ready to lead.” The first one, released three weeks ago, compared the Democrat to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. That prompted a storm of news-media attention and even a response video from Ms. Hilton. The result: For the first time in a long time, Sen. McCain was controlling the conversation.
His campaign also began limiting Sen. McCain’s exposure to the national press, cutting back the number of formal news conferences and eliminating the more open-ended conversations on his bus. The goal was to keep Sen. McCain, who is known for riffing on any topic, from veering off the message of the day.
At the same time, Sen. Obama’s trip abroad may not have done him much good, and a week on vacation kept him largely out of the news.
Finally, an international crisis played to Sen. McCain’s greatest strength and reminded voters of dangers abroad. Pollsters surveyed voters from Aug. 15 to Aug. 18, starting a week after fighting broke out between Russia and its smaller neighbor Georgia.
“The poll shows how wrong the Washington conventional wisdom has been on this race,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior McCain strategist who is responsible for much of the new message discipline.
The poll found voters are, by a six-to-one margin, more likely to see Sen. McCain as the only one running a negative campaign, but that doesn’t seem to be affecting their view of the race, reinforcing the notion that in politics, attacks work.
The McCain TV ads, combined with the candidate’s criticism of Sen. Obama from the stump, have further solidified the race as a referendum on the Democratic senator. Voters like Sen. Obama’s agenda and his message of change. But they have qualms about his ability to be commander in chief that his July trip to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Mideast and Europe didn’t dispel.
“Whatever momentum Obama took into the summer, he really appears to have lost,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who conducts The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll with Democrat Peter D. Hart. “It’s as if his campaign has stalled a little bit or coasted.”
In response to the McCain attacks, Sen. Obama has gone negative as well, with a new round of ads attacking Sen. McCain as out of touch with the concerns of working Americans. He has also sharpened his rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Many of those attacks concentrate on tying Sen. McCain to the unpopular President Bush, and the new survey suggests voters agree. One-third of voters say Sen. McCain would follow Mr. Bush’s policies “very closely,” and another 44% said he would follow them “somewhat closely.” Those numbers are unchanged from July.
And the poll found that voters think Sen. Obama would do a better job on several issues they see as important, including the economy, health care, the housing crisis and energy. Sen. McCain is favored on Iraq, illegal immigration, terrorism and, by a wide margin, international crisis such as Iran, Russia and the country of Georgia.
A critical task for Sen. Obama will be bringing Sen. Clinton’s supporters to his side, the pollsters agreed. Overall, 11% of all voters said they would vote for Sen. Clinton if she were running against Sen. McCain but aren’t supporting Sen. Obama in his race.
These voters look like people who would be supporting Sen. Obama, but they aren’t. They aren’t happy with the direction of the country, they don’t like President Bush, and they want Congress to be controlled by Democrats. Ideologically, they are liberal or moderate. Demographically, they tend to be female with incomes below $50,000.
Yet this group views Sen. McCain more favorably than they view Sen. Obama, and they are uncomfortable with the idea of Sen. Obama in the White House. And one in three sees Sen. Obama as “arrogant and cocky.”
If Sen. Obama could win over these voters, it would open up a real advantage for him.
The issue raises the stakes for the next week’s Democratic National Convention, where Sen. Clinton’s name will be put into nomination and she will deliver a prime-time address.
“The Democratic convention is more than a coronation,” said Mr. Hart, the Democratic pollster. “The Hillary Clinton campaign may be over, but the Clinton factor remains very much a part of the election.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the campaign is working closely with the Clinton camp, and the party is largely united.
“Do we still have work to do with folks who supported Hillary Clinton? Absolutely, but we’ve been able to make great strides,” Mr. Burton said. “The vast majority of Democrats are moving forward. We’re going to come out of our convention even more unified than we are right now, ready to take on John McCain in the fall.”
It won’t be easy, Mr. Newhouse, the Republican pollster, said. “They’ve already voted once against Barack Obama, and right now, after three months of 20-20 hindsight, they’re still not voting for Barack Obama.”
Hindsight or foresight?