For tomorrow’s TPMtv episode we’re doing a final March 4th primaries round up, looking at what the states are, how many delegates they have, who looks set to do well where, and so forth. So I had a member of the staff write up a memo for me. And looking at the polls a bit more closely, it looks like the polls in both Ohio and Texas are trending in Hillary’s direction, though she still appears to be behind in Texas.
The polls aren’t unanimous of course. There are significant exceptions. Like Zogby, for instance, has Obama for the first time in the lead in Ohio. But he’s clearly an outlier on this.
A big complicating factor in Texas is the caucus, where people assume based on past caucuses, that Obama will significantly outperform his poll numbers.
As I said earlier, everybody who’s watching the numbers closely can see this as well as we can. And compared to two weeks ago, the probable outcome for Obama in both races looks good. But a Hillary win in one or especially two races would be a jolt to the atmosphere we’re in at the moment where Obama is seen as an all but unstoppable force.
From the beginning of the primaries, there’s been a pattern I’ve seen from a lot of Hillary supporters which of late has basically had it that despite Obama’s wins in February, a couple solid wins on March 4th means he has to get out. I’m not kidding. I hear this a lot. It’s a weird mindset. There was a lot of it after Super Tuesday. I cannot tell you how many emails we got here at TPM on February 6th arguing that it was over and obvious that Obama had to bow out after Super Tuesday. And I’ve started seeing a series of similar emails this morning: if Hillary wins Ohio and Texas, she’s got the nomination. (I just noticed an example here in our reader blogs section.)
That seems ridiculous to me. But I’ll admit I’m less sure than I was even a couple days where we’re going to be on March 5th. Under most probable scenarios the overall delegate math doesn’t change a lot tomorrow. And I still don’t see the superdelegates going for the candidate who has a clear deficit among pledged delegates. But politics is unpredictable.
