Posted by Jed Lewison on Fri Feb 8, 2008 at 1:04 PM Pacific
Obama, Clinton, and McCain: Electability by the numbers
This is a post about electability, but I'm not going to argue that either Obama or Clinton is more electable than the other.
Rather, I'm just going to offer a comprehensive review of available polling data, allowing you to draw your own conclusions.
Moreover, instead of zeroing in one one specific poll or polling organization, the data in this diary is based on averages of 62 different national polls and 20 different state polls.
Part I: National polling data
The national polling data consists of every single public poll I could get my hands on. The only criteria was that both Hillary and Obama had to be in the poll, and I only included matchups against John McCain. The only minor exception is Rasmussen, which has typically polled Clinton/McCain and Obama/McCain matchups in separate polls, but in the same timeframe. In those cases, I treated them single polls (almost all were within one week).
Altogether, I identified 62 polls, and I present them by quarter to show trends. Here's the number of polls per quarter:
Q107: 17
Q207: 15
Q307: 7
Q407: 9
Q108: 14
These charts might seem a little unusual. Typically, when you hear about a poll, you're interested in knowing the level of support for each candidate plus the undecided vote.
In these charts, the goal is to compare Obama and Clinton, so I provide a separate chart for the support for Obama and Clinton, the support for McCain, the level of undecideds, and finally, the margin between Obama or Clinton and McCain.
Each chart provides the relevant number for both Obama and Clinton.
As you can see, Obama is coded in orange (in honor of his strong level of support on Daily Kos) and Clinton is coded in green.
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Here's national chart #1, which shows the level of support for Obama and Clinton against McCain, by quarter.
National chart #2 shows the level of support for McCain, also by quarter.
National chart #3 shows the level of support for McCain, also by quarter.
National chart #4 shows the size of the Democratic lead (or deficit), also by quarter.
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Part II: State polling data
The state polling data relies exclusively on SurveyUSA polls since December 1, 2007. The data is presented in similar fashion as the national charts, but instead of showing trends, the charts are broken down by state.
The states are ordered left to right by number of electoral votes.
Here's the numbers of EVs for each state, along with the number of polls that the data is based on:
OH: 20 EVs, 3 polls
VA: 13 EVs, 2 polls
MO: 11 EVs, 2 polls
WA: 11 EVs, 3 polls
MN: 10 EVs, 2 polls
WI: 10 EVs, 2 polls
IA: 7 EVs, 2 polls
OR: 7 EVs, 2 polls
NM: 5 EVs, 2 polls
As with the national data, state chart #1 shows the level of support for Obama and Clinton.
State chart #2 shows the level of support for McCain.
Start chart #3 shows the amount of undecided voters.
Start chart #4 shows the size of the Democratic lead (or deficit).
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Hopefully, this compilation of data was useful to you. As this primary continues to drag on, I'll try to do an update in a few weeks.