Posted by: McQ on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 If ever there was an important primary for Hillary Clinton, it is Wisconsin. Sure Ohio and Texas may be her "firewall" but if she has even a chance at the nomination she needs to win Wisconsin first. It would demonstrate her ability to recover from the losses she's suffered recently, blunt the Obama momentum and, frankly, build a little for her going into the critical 'firewall' primaries. There are 5.5 million people in Wisconsin. 90% of the state is White, 6% are African Americans (although in Milwaukee County, the African American population is 26.6%.) and 4.7% are Hispanic. So the vote is going to be primarily a white vote. You'd think that wold bode well for Hillary Clinton. However, Gallup says Obama has made inroads into the very demographic segments which have been the base of Clinton's support: Obama's standing has improved among most Democratic subgroups over the past several days. But one of the more substantial shifts has been the changing preferences of middle-aged Democratic voters, who have moved away from Clinton and toward Obama in the past week. Obama has also made gains among three other groups that have favored Clinton throughout much of the campaign — women, Hispanics, and self-identified Democrats.Couple that with a huge student population and same day registration in an open primary (so indpendents and even Republicans will be voting as well) and it would seem Obama may have the edge. In fact, the polls support that contention giving Obama a 4.3% lead according to the RCP average. There are 74 delegates up for grabs (48 proportional by Congressional District, 15% threshold; 26 by statewide vote, 15% threshold). That isn't a huge number of delegats, per se. But the battle itself is certainly an important one, if not the most important one, that Clinton has faced to date. If she can win here she can validly claim that the race is far from over and that she has a legitimate shot of winning it outright. If she loses, it simply adds to the aura of inevitability that Obama has been building with his 10 straight wins. While she may indeed win both Texas and Ohio, that won't put the dent in that aura that a win in Wisconsin would. She's supposed to win in the other two states. She isn't supposed to win in Wisconsin. That's why it is so important that she actually do so. Dale and I will be discussing the results of the WI primary and what it means in the big scheme of things tonight at 8:30 ET on BlogTalk radio. Join us and join the conversation. Hit the BlogTalk radio button at the top of the page for the number and info on the show. UPDATE: The official Dem delegate count as of today from NBC: OFFICIAL NBC NEWS HARD COUNT (Democrats)UPDATE II: Fluidity in the numbers since Clinton has started attacking Obama. From Jill Lawrence of USA Today's "On Politics" blog: Barack Obama holds a 1-percentage-point lead over Hillary Clinton in today's three-day Gallup tracking poll. That's down from a 7-point lead yesterday numbers could change again after tonight's Wisconsin primary. |
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