Friday, February 22, 2008
Ohioans are focused on the economy and health care, but in Texas, health care is the top issue.
WASHINGTON POST
AUSTIN, Texas — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing a pair of big Democratic primary tests on March 4 that could determine the fate of her presidential candidacy, is deadlocked with Sen. Barack Obama here in Texas and holds a slender lead over him in Ohio, according to two new Washington Post-ABC News polls.
The closeness of the races in Texas and Ohio underscores the challenges facing Clinton over the next 12 days of campaigning as she seeks to end Obama’s double-digit winning streak in their battle for the Democratic nomination. Those victories have given Obama a lead in delegates to the national convention and have put Clinton’s candidacy at risk unless she can rack up a string of big victories of her own.
In Ohio, Clinton leads Obama in the new poll by 50 percent to 43 percent, a significant but tenuous advantage given the shifts that have taken place elsewhere as candidates intensified their campaigns in advance of previous primaries. In Texas, the race is even, with Clinton at 48 percent and Obama at 47 percent.
In recent contests in Virginia and Wisconsin, Obama cut into Clinton’s coalition, a potentially significant change in the Democratic race. At this point in Ohio and Texas, Clinton is doing better than she did in those states among her more reliable voters, but has yet to make deep inroads into Obama’s core supporters.
The Post-ABC News polls show Clinton with solid support from white women, seniors and voters with less education and lower incomes in both Ohio and Texas. She holds a big lead among Hispanics in Texas. Obama has large advantages among independents, blacks and better-educated voters in both states.
Clinton advisers have expressed optimism about her prospects in the two contests, but the new polls suggest the momentum Obama achieved in his string of victories has turned both into true battlegrounds. Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, said this week that she must win Texas and Ohio to keep her candidacy viable.
In Ohio, the economy and health care are battling for the top spot on voters’ agendas, while in Texas health care is the clear No. 1 concern, followed by the economy and Iraq. In Ohio, the war in Iraq also comes in third place, but far below the other two; just 9 percent of voters there called it their most important voting issue.
Obama and Clinton supporters in both states are highly enthusiastic about the candidates, and more than seven in 10 said they definitely will stick with the candidate they have embraced.
Most in both states view Clinton as the stronger leader, but majorities in Ohio and Texas said Obama has the experience to serve effectively as president. About four in 10 said Obama did not have the necessary résumé.
Obama holds only narrow edges in both states on the question of who would do more “to bring needed change to Washington,” and about seven in 10 said Clinton would do enough to set a new course.
The polls were conducted by telephone Feb. 16 to 20, among random samples of 611 Ohio adults and 603 Texas adults likely to participate in the Democratic primaries in those states.
Sampling error margins are plus or minus four percentage points for the full samples; error margins are larger for subgroups.