Belo Texas Tracking Poll: Obama 46 (+1), Clinton 46 (unchanged)

[MadBadger]

http://www.wfaa.com/s/dws/img/standing/wfaa/poll/data/0302/0302.pdf


Democratic Race Still Deadlocked: The Race Hinges on Turnout
Democratic Primary
1. Two days out from the Texas Democratic presidential primary, the race is tied at 46% for
Hillary Clinton and 46% for Barack Obama. Looking at the ballot among those who say
they definitely will vote for their candidate, 37% say they are definitely voting for Hillary
Clinton and 37% say they are definitely voting for Barack Obama.

At this point in the Democratic battle for Texas, it comes down to the basics, Campaigning
101 -- getting out the vote. Where then should the campaigns focus their respective efforts
to make the most of their remaining resources? Generally, they will want to focus the most
resources where they can generate the greatest yield.

From the standpoint of the popular vote, they will want to focus on the largest voting blocks
where they have the biggest leads. Once again, that means Hispanics for Hillary Clinton
and African Americans for Barack Obama.

The complex nature of the Texas Democratic presidential primary, however, requires a
secondary consideration as the campaigns will be attempting to maximize the number of
delegates they can win, which is a campaign that is being waged at the State Senate district
level. Focusing too many resources on Hispanics and African Americans where there are
none to leverage would be a mistake.

With these strategic considerations in mind, consider the advantages these candidates have
with different voting blocks by the size of the voting block.

o Hillary Clinton leads 68% to 26% among Hispanics -- a 42-point gap with a group that
comprises 24% of the likely voters in our sample. Barack Obama leads 79%-8% among
African Americans -- a 71-point gap with a group that comprises 22% of the likely voters
in our sample.

[adoraz]

1. damn, this will be close

[FrenchieCat]

2. The Black vote will be way much more.......

than that. They are low balling it...based on 2004. They ain't seen nothing yet.

And the ground game should be interesting to watch.

[jefferson_dem]

3. AND one-third of the state's delegates will be allocated based on caucus results.

Obama should dominate there, we hope.

[NJSecularist]

6. It doesn't matter if the black turnout is increased 1-2% over the 22% black turnout they are listing

If he loses the Hispanic vote 68-24 like poll says he is, he will lose the state...

[adoraz]

8. why is that?

even if blacks make up less, if he has an even BIGGER lead with blacks, then how do you explain that?

do you expect a lot more Hispanics to show up?

[NJSecularist]

24. Because he will probably lose the white vote too.

And Hispanic turnout will most assuredly be larger than black turnout.

[Alhena]

12. He may lose the popular vote, but Hispanics are disadvantaged delegate-wise

because they didn't vote Democratic in 2004 and 2006. Having said that, Obama will need to really get out the non-hispanic vote in the 4 delegate districts in the Rio Grande Valley in hopes of keeping Hillary below the magic 62.5% threshold that would give her a 3-1 delegate split.

I expect that the rare black guy living in the Rio Grande Valley will be offered a limo ride to the polls by the Obama campaign. :)

[jefferson_dem]

13. But the largely African-American districts have more delagates than the largely Hispanic districts.

That being said, Obama does need a better showing than 30% support among Hispanics.

[nolabels]

22. Belo is total B.S. sell out shill of a corporation (they deliver our newspaper)

I only read the sports section and toss the rest. Its the only newspaper in town and this a mostly fast growing but republican type of area so you would think they would be doing better but they have lost about a third of their circulation volume in the last ten years. They print a mostly conservative right wing view about everything. They haven't figured out how to turn sports stories to right wing swill but bet they would if they could :shrug:

Yea, Belo, good luck with that garbage

[Johnny__Motown]

4. Likely voters poll...... many Unlikely voters showing up this time around, so we shall see

I think Barack will win by a comfortable margin (6-8).

[jezebel]

5. Obama has a big lead in early voters according to the poll. NT

[adoraz]

9. what are they (I looked but didn't see the numbers)

[jezebel]

15. for the whole week 2/24-3/2 (2400 people polled) Obama 56%, Clinton 44% NT

[MadBadger]

16. Basically taht means most of her supporters are supposed to vote election day

But he leads in votes that have already happened, which is goodd.

[adoraz]

18. cool, thanks for that :)

[jenmito]

7. I think they over-sampled Hispanics and under-sampled AAs. I heard that reported

today-that they use the last election to base their sample on but things have changed in Obama's favor since then. :D

[Herman Munster]

10. if anything they are over sampling blacks

According to the hard count of the early voting, cross referencing the names of people who actually voted early against their demographics, 25% of early voting turnout in Harris County (Houston) were black.

To get 25% black turnout statewide, Obama needs to be getting 50% turnout in Harris County because black folk are mostly concentrated in Houston and Dallas.

He's not getting that so far.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5585063.html

Democratic demographer Leland Beatty of Austin said 65 percent of the early voting turnout in Houston through Thursday included people who had not cast a ballot in the past three Democratic primaries. At least a quarter of the turnout is black, he said.

And 11,213 — 8.2 percent — were people who previously had voted in the Republican primary, he said.

The new voters would seem to favor Obama, Beatty said, but 69 percent of the early vote was cast by people older age 40 and 41 percent of the votes were from older women. Obama's appeal has been strongest with people younger than 40.

[adoraz]

11. I heard reports that said

that black turnout was extremely strong, so we will see.

I think it will be close to 25%.

[Herman Munster]

14. you can't argue the hard numbers

Voting is public record. Each day of early voting the campaigns get a list of all the names of people who voted early in the state. You don't know who they voted for but the campaigns can easily cross-reference the lists of early voters to people they have canvassed or called to see how many supporters went to the polls, and also make other inferences based on the demographics of the early voters.

The Clinton campaign says 30% of early voters were latino and they skewed much older than Obama's core demographic strengths. 2/3rds of early voters were 50 or older.

So the Belo poll is underestimating latinos by 6%.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/01/MNG3VBN6J.DTL&type=politics

Already, an estimated 600,000 Texans have cast ballots in 254 counties in the early voting period, which ended Friday; Clinton campaign organizer Matt Clemons says an estimated 30 percent of them were Latino, nearly 60 percent were women, and two-thirds were age 50 or older, all good signs for Clinton.

[Alhena]

17. Latinos historically vote early in Texas ...

and the increases in Latino early voting aren't as great as among other ethnic groups. Why do you think the county which includes Brownsville (Cannon County) is only up 100% in early voting while counties with a lot of black residents, such as Fort Bend County, are up as much as 1000%?

This is all pretty much irrelevant since if the numbers are as close as the original article suggests then Hillary is probably going to lose delegates in Texas, including the caucus and she certainly isn't going to gain more than a few. And she's down 150 pledged delegates so it's not looking good.

[adoraz]

19. okay, but this is still just early voting

isn't early voting only about 25%?

All I'm saying is I wouldn't rely too heavily on those numbers if I was you.

Besides, often older people are the ones who vote early. Is that including mail in ballots? those are almost always older people.

[Drunken Irishman]

20. This tells me she ain't surging like everyone thought.

[adoraz]

21. yeah, more like just keeping it at the same place

[MadBadger]

23. I think those that 3AM ad halted any gains she had.