Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania: Obama making serious gains
However, I’d note that Clinton’s overall support has remained at the critical 50% level for the past week. Obama’s support has risen: he’s now behind by 6% instead of 9%. So while he’s gaining, she’s not yielding any ground. And I’d bet a 6% to 8% win for her remains likely. That falls far short of her need for a blowout win there.
More importantly, the poll still shows three great divides: racial, gender and generational. Unlike past generational divides in presidential elections, though, it’s not confined to those under 30. Based on this and the results from other states, the dividing line is somewhere between 45 and 55 years of age.
In some states, each of these divides is fairly soft, but in a number of states, they appear to be pretty hard. The most inflexible appears to be racial - in states with a long record of difficult racial relations, and gender - in most states, where older women back Clinton by very wide margins.
Racial minorities have a long history of coalescing behind Democratic nominees, even if their preferred candidate loses. This year may be different, though the biggest unknown remains whether the younger voters and older women will demonstrate their willingness to unite when the nomination is settled. And Quinnipiac here, offers no answers to that beyond noting that Obama’s picking up more support (by 4%) from women than he had a week ago. Yet again, Clinton’s support among women has not eroded even 1%; the gap is now 54%-41% in that group.
