The Houston Chronicle’s Texas Politics blog says that Barack Obama’s support is on the rise in Texas while Hillary Clinton’s supporters have remained static the race for the state’s delegates to the Democratic national convention.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton remains statistically about the same as where she was in January. She currently holds 48 percent support in the state.
But Obama, also a U.S. senator, has surged from 28 percent support last month to 38 percent this month.
Winning is not necessarily everything for presidential candidates in Texas because it is not a winner-take-all state. Both the Democrats and Republicans have systems for awarding national convention delegates based on a proportionate share of the vote.
What’s interesting about these numbers, should they hold up, is that Hillary has not demonstrably gained any ground after John Edwards bowed out of the race.
Because they are held a month after Super Tuesday, Texas’ primaries once seemed almost irrelevant. Now, with the race so close, Texas may yet prove to be a decisive battle.
So, the questions are: Are we going to see this trend of Obama gaining most of former Edwards’ supporters nationwide? And what would happen if Edwards actually endorsed him?
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
With the primary held so long after super-Tuesday, I think momentum is key. If one beats the other by very very few delegates, in such a way that Texas can be a tie-breaker, it’s going to get very interesting indeed. If, on the other hand, Texas is a tie breaker but only just, in the sense that one candidate gets enough delegates that it would take an ample majority in Texas to reverse that, I see it as more likely that the state be taken by the momentum of Super-Tuesday and simply vote with the winner.