PA poll: 'Bitter' flap hasn't changed Obama's numbers
Barack Obama's off-the-cuff comment about small-town Pennsylvanians being "bitter" over their low status on the economic totem poll doesn't seem to have lowered his standing in the state, according to a poll conducted since the comment was reported.
The latest Quinnipiac Poll of likely Pennsylvania primary voters shows Hillary Clinton maintaining her lead in the state. The 50-to-44 percent edge Clinton holds in the poll is unchanged from its last survey a week ago.
The poll is significant because about half of the survey was conducted after Clinton and Republican nominee John McCain harshly criticized Obama over his comments at a San Francisco fundraiser that were reported last Friday. The Quinnipiac survey was conducted April 9-13, and the pollster's noted "there was no noticeable" change in the in results after Obama's comments were reported.
Gallup's national daily tracking poll also shows Obama's standing unaffected by the flap over his comments. He maintains a 10-point lead in the national survey, Gallup's first since the 'bitter' remark was reported.
While Clinton's lead is down from the double-digit leads she held in the Keystone State as of a few weeks ago, the poll seems to show she's managed to staunch the flow of voters into the Obama camp.
"She seems to have halted the erosion of whites and white women in particular from her campaign," Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a press release.
"She even gained back some ground in the Philadelphia suburbs - the area where elections are won and lost in the Keystone State. She now trails Obama by just two points in this critical area, while she was 11 points behind a week ago."
The poll also showed a quarter of Clinton voters would switch to McCain in the fall if Obama were to get the nomination, while about a fifth of Obama supporters would bolt to the GOP rather than support Clinton.
The poll shows that 55 percent of Pennsylvania Democratic voters -- including one in three Clinton supporters -- believe Obama will win.
"Two big questions are whether the Clinton forces can keep from getting discouraged by all the talk she can't win the nomination even if she wins Pennsylvania," Richards said, "and whether enthusiasm for Obama will translate into a record turnout of blacks and young first-time voters that would deny Clinton the victory she needs to stay alive."
| 
