Assessing the Dem Primary Fallout

Since the end of the Democratic primary the $64,000 question has been, "how many Hillary Clinton supporters were so disappointed and disillusioned by the outcome that they won't support Obama and will cross over and vote for John McCain this fall?"

It's an impossible question to answer, especially at this point in the campaign when the general election is just barely underway. But we do have some recent polls that give us a glimpse at where things stand right now.

In addition to breaking down the general election vote by party, the most recent Fox News and Newsweek polls drilled down to focus on how Hillary Clinton primary voters are indicating they will vote in November.

As you can see, relative to the pool of all Democrats respondents, support for Obama among this subset falls by 13 and 11 percent, respectively, while support for McCain rises 7 percent in both:

chart1.gif

So there does seem to be some lingering fallout among Clinton supporters, though it should be noted that Obama increased his overall lead in both polls.

What the national polls can't tell us, however, is how this fallout is distributed around the country and whether it is concentrated in certain states that could pose problems for the Obama campaign.

Luckily, we have some data from Quinnipiac's recent swing state survey that gives us some indication of how Clinton primary voters in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are feeling. As you can see, Florida closely mirrors the national numbers but the trend is more pronounced in Pennsylvania and especially Ohio, where the net change (drop in support for Obama/increase in support for McCain) reaches 22 and 29 points respectively:

chart2.gif

Again, it should be noted that Obama increased his lead over McCain in every Quinnipiac state poll, indicating that despite whatever lingering fallout exists with Clinton supporters, Obama is more than making up the difference with gains among other groups.

Still, it should give the Obama campaign a bit of a pause to see that, at least for the moment, one in four Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries in both Ohio and Pennsylvania indicate they will crossover to vote for McCain in the fall.



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