TPM: "Penn polling differences in General statistically Minor"

[Capn Sunshine]

One of the Hillary campaign's central claims in recent days has been that her advantage over Obama in Pennsylvania suggests she's a stronger general election candidate than Barack Obama.

Today Hillary pollster Mark Penn opined that Hillary's presumed victory in Pennsylvania will show that Obama can't win a general election. And the campaign has repeatedly expressed the view that "the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue runs right through Pennsylvania."

But we subscribe to the novel idea that general election match-up numbers, not primary ones, are a better indicator for what will happen in the general election.

So here are all the polls that we could find for this whole year -- that is, since the primaries and caucuses actually started -- measuring how both Obama and Hillary fare against John McCain in Pennsylvania:

Rasmussen (March 13)
McCain (R) 46%, Clinton (D) 44%
McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 43%

Strategic Vision (R) (March 12)
McCain (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 42%
< McCain (R) 47%, Obama (D) 44%[br />
SurveyUSA (March 6)
Clinton (D) 47%, McCain (R) 46%
McCain (R) 47%, Obama (D) 42%

Quinnipiac (February 27)
Clinton (D) 44%, McCain (R) 42%
Obama (D) 42%, McCain (R) 40%

Franklin & Marshall (February 21)
McCain (R) 44%, Clinton (D) 42%
McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 43%

Rasmussen (February 17)
McCain (R) 44%, Clinton (D) 42%
Obama (D) 49%, McCain (R) 39%

Quinnipiac (February 14)
Clinton (D) 46%, McCain (R) 40%
Obama (D) 42%, McCain (R) 41%

Rasmussen (January 8)
McCain (R) 48%, Clinton (D) 42%
McCain (R) 46%, Obama (D) 38%

As you can see, Hillary does fare slightly better against McCain in several more polls, but the differences overall seem statistically minor at best, and certainly don't justify Penn's claims. More to the point, Hillary and Obama both beat McCain in the same number of polls -- three each.

Bottom line: The general election match-ups suggest that it's a huge stretch to make a Hillary-is-more-electable argument for Pennsylvania based simply on Democratic primary numbers.More

[Scurrilous]

1. Thanks for posting this.

K & R :thumbsup: