Poll: Hillary Hot in California
by Josh Gerstein
Tue, 3 Apr 2007 at 3:25 PM
updated Tue, 3 Apr 2007 at 3:27 PM
Interesting numbers from California today in the first thorough public poll of the Democratic presidential race in the state in quite a while. The Field Poll (PDF) shows Senator Clinton with a healthy lead over Senator Obama, 41% to 28%, among likely Democratic primary voters. John Edwards had 13%. All others were in low single digits.
The poll gives some decent demographic breakdowns missing from other public data. As one senses at their events, Mrs. Clinton's support tends to skew older. She wallops Mr. Obama, 45% to 19%, among senior citizens, while in the 18-to-39 age group, the Illinois senator is effectively tied with his New York colleague, 39% to 38%. While one might expect Mrs. Clinton to do especially well with women, no gender gap turned up in the poll.
It also looks like the more educated you are, the more likely you are to support Mr. Obama. Among those with only high school education or less, Mrs. Clinton was four times as popular as Mr. Obama. Among college grads, she had just a 2% edge. Correlations with age may explain some of this. And it should be noted that margins of error climb when you get into subgroups. Mrs. Clinton had a huge advantage with latinos, 59% to 18%. Looks like the sample was too small to get good data on where African-American voters stand.
The poll shows Vice President Gore in second place if he jumps in, but candidates who haven't declared often do well until they actually get in and are hit with tougher press coverage.
The Field folks note that Mr. Edwards runs a bit stronger with so-called permanent absentee voters. Those people are pretty motivated politically and may be drawn to the former North Carolina senator's detailed policy plans.
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