Poll: It's all tied up for Dems in Texas

[Omaha Steve]

Source: CNN

By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director

(CNN) -- Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a statistical dead heat in Texas, according to a poll released eight days before the state's crucial presidential primary.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said Obama is their choice for the party's nominee, while 46 percent backed Clinton.

But taking into account the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.

Clinton had a statistically insignificant 50 percent to 48 percent edge over Obama in last Monday's CNN/ORC poll in Texas.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/25/texas.poll/

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Full story & photos at link.

[earthlover]

1. That is a 6 point gain since last CNN poll....the Texas Tide is Turning!

[Mojambo]

2. She's in big trouble. A close win does little to help her chances. n/t

[damntexdem]

4. For HRC, a close win is a loss.

An outright loss in delegates.

But she need not worry -- Obama may win big, so ease her close-win anxieties.

[last1standing]

3. But isn't Obama's support coming from areas with more voting power?

I won't pretend to know too much about this, but I thought I had heard that the areas with the most Obama supporters had been given more delegates than Clinton's. Am I wrong about that?

[damntexdem]

5. They have more delegates based on Dem voting in the last primary.

Austin is blue, Dallas has turned blue, Houston has many heavily-Democratic areas -- and this was true in the last primary. It's not true of areas where HRC may do better.

Although this years' primary votes may change delegate allocation for the future in major ways, that won't help HRC this year. And almost all TX counties are showing more Dem than GOP votes in the early voting this year -- if that holds up for the entire primary, there might not even be much shifting of delegates for next time.

[AnneD]

6. And they aren't even counting

the GOP that jump the fence to vote this time around.