The Field Poll for the Feb. 5th election is now out.
Clinton still leads, and Obama still trails, but the number of undecideds is far larger than Clinton's lead. So there could be an upset.
McCain has a solid lead over Romney. Not unexpected for CA.
What's interesting (to me) is that Obama keeps repeating the centrist rhetoric, but self-described conservatives heavily favor Clinton. Also interesting is that Obama is more popular with the more educated voters -- perhaps its his somewhat academic oratory style. Also, wealthier folks might simply be more open to risk at this time -- Clinton represents a safer, "establishement" vote.
There's a huge gender gap, with men favoring Obama heavily, and women favoring Clinton heavily.
The likely voters trend to Clinton, and the ones who are indies or less likely to vote trend to Obama. So get-out-the-vote is important for Obama.
However, vote-by-mail votes split evenly, while vote-in-person voters are heavily favoring Clinton. That sounds like the GOTV for Obama is going to be extra tough - the hard-core votes have already voted, and the big Obamamaniacs are slackers.
One weird stat is "liberal" versus "conservative". Liberals favor Obama, and Conservatives favor Clinton. To me, though, Obama's policy positions seem more conservative and pro-business than Clinton's. His rhetoric also takes more from the right-wing chatterbox of blabbing points than the old-liberal speechbook.
I guess it's all about "representations." You are what you think you are. After all, the late Eazy-E, a gangster, drug dealer, rapper, and AIDS victim, was a Republican, and donor to GHW Bush. I mean, really, what the ----?
The rich Dems like Obama a lot, while the poor ones like Clinton. Maybe they define "liberal" and "conservative" by social values, rather than by their economic ideology. (I don't think most people identify with an economic ideology.) So you have a lot of bread-and-roses, possibly anti-abortion folks in this state going for Clinton. It's nice to see the Democratic base return (even if they might not like people like me, much).
The McCain win in CA is no surprise. It's a moderate Conservative state, and the GOP is dominated by rich folks. Our Governor is one, and he was a big pot smoker, womanizer, titty grabber, and steroid shooter. He's a bigger humiliator of women, and a bigger moral turd than Bill Clinton, by a magnitude. When, on his deathbed, A.S. sees his life flash before him, he's gonna barf. He's also our top Republican.
Final Field Poll Results!
Lower income voters are also generally less educated, and both lower income and less educated voters don't follow politics very carefully. They know who Hillary is because she's been in the public eye for about fifteen years. Obama's still introducing himself to the voters. So if you ask someone who they're going to vote for, the person they've heard of or the person they haven't, they tend to respond with the name they're most familiar with.
In the first few states, when Obama had months, or least days or weeks to introduce himself to a state, he's been doing okay. But twenty-four states in two weeks? That's probably not long enough to penetrate the electorate's consciousness, using either free or paid media.
The uber-frontloaded primary calendar plays into the hands of the party insider. And, up until a few weeks ago, most of the party insiders were lining up behind Hillary.
But what's really surprising is how many party establishment figures are turning out for Barack: Look at all those Kennedys. Caroline Kennedy, in particular, has never really inserted herself into partisan politics. And Maria Shriver, just days after Mr. Steroids endorsed McCain?
If not for Bobby's kids, Obama would have had a lock on the Kennedy clan. RFK Jr. gives Hillary a psychological boost, if only because of that iconic photo of he and Cesar Chavez (which she's using in one of her ads in CA, along with RFK Jr and one of Cesar Chavez's grandkids). But I'm not sure if the Chavez name (or the Kennedy name, for that matter) resonates with Hispanics in the 21st Century.
Final Field Poll Results!
They released the results on Sunday. I wonder if most of the calls were made before or after the debate. They must have been made before the recent series of appearances by the Clintons and the Obama people.
Field Poll
Todd blogs "Lower income voters are also generally less educated, and both lower income and less educated voters don't follow politics very carefully"
Reply: And yet, our less educated, lower income parents and grandparents had the where-with-all and instincts to vote for FDR's New Deal and Kennedy's New Frontier. They got us this far Todd, oh yet of little faith. It's up to us baby boomers and gen x'ers to take it the rest of the way for our kids and grandkids.
Good voting all.
Field Poll
Faith can remove mountains, but faith doesn't change the fact that less educated, lower income individuals don't vote and don't participate in politics at the same rates as higher educated, higher income voters.
By the way, I took a "secret" survey of my class. [Secret ballots, so no one would be disuaded from revealing their preference]
Democrats: Clinton, 15 votes; Obama, 4 votes
Republicans: McCain, 1 vote; Huckabee, 1 vote
That's just from the students in my class, and it's obviously not a random sample of anything. But my prior suspicion is that it is somewhat representative of the students at Cal State LA (no doubt helped by Hillary's visit to campus on Saturday). This particular class is heavily Hispanic and female and Democratic (reflecting our campus population).
field poll
Incorrect. It's not how many "registered voters" there are, but how many actually come out to vote, and that core voter group is still retirees from the Depression era (or as Tom Brokow calls, "The Greatest Generation", not baby boomers and especially disappointing, generation X'ers.
field poll
My comment about lower income and less educated people not voting is, "all things equal." Another factor that influences voting is age. Older people are more likely to vote (and be registered to vote) than younger people. Among older people, higher income and higher education levels correlate with higher voter turnout. Among younger people, higher income levels and higher education levels correlate with higher voter turnout.
Also, on average, older people are better off financially than younger people. The poverty rate among people over age 65 is lower than that for people between 21-64, and way lower than it is for people under age 21.
Also, regarding the question at hand, why is Hillary doing better among the less educated and lower income than Obama? Are poor people happier with the status quo than richer, better educated people? That doesn't make any sense. So I conclude it's more likely a matter of lack of information about Obama than about a love for the status quo.
field poll
It's true - Clinton had a big lead with the older folks and the frequent voters. Obama was more popular with the ones less likely to vote. So, all these undecideds showed up to vote - and, they trended to Clinton because, well, the ones likely to remember to vote and experienced in voting tended to like Clinton.
Obama has a very bimodal appeal. High income, high level of education folks... and low income, low education, low-propensity to vote. I think of the first group as "netroots" and my gf says that the latter are the "Oprah watchers".
To be fair, many netroots are poor, and many Oprah watchers are not poor, and I'm sure many know how to vote. I'm feeling like the media is a huge factor for Obama. The best-informed are attracted to his intellectualism. The barely-able-to-comprehend-voting are going along with Oprah and celebrity appeal.
In between are the "masses" of tv news watchers, who don't read the internet blogs, and are fed up with Oprah. These folks aren't going to "know" Obama.
That's "don't know him yet". There's obviously a trend where people switch from TV to the internet. Ron Paul is a great example of that -- all these yahoos asking "have you heard of Ron Paul?" Yeah. I've heard of him for twenty years. He's been popular on the internet since the late 1980s. He's only new to a million *new* internet users who have been online only a few years.
That trend is going to help Obama, a lot. Not only are a lot of people voting for the first time -- they are really reading electoral information on the internet for the first time. They are reviewing speeches, looking up voting records, and other things, for the first time. It reminds me of my pal, who, for the first time a few years ago, used the internet for something besides porn.
I'm sure some kids are using the net for something besides myspace and stealing music, for the first time.
Anyway, this trend helps Obama because it gives him a lot of exposure, quickly, and with depth. It puts Obama and Clinton on a level playing field.
Old School
I just got an email about the Obama campaign that explains some of his popularity among the less-likely-to-vote. His campaign is using grassroots organizing techniques to run their campaigns in smaller states. So, they are getting out to people who are generally ignored by both parties, and ignored by campaign consultants.
I wrote up a long post about it, but this old article explains it better:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/obama-field-organizers-pl_b_61918.html
Old School
Yep. That works in small communities, particularly in low-turnout elections (like presidential caucuses or city council elections). We at SOC know all about this. :D