The new Quinnipiac poll is out today, and despite Hillary's best efforts to paint Obama as an out of touch elitist who can't connect with small town voters, there is no change in the numbers. So... there isn't yet evidence of the backlash I predicted, but there also isn't any evidence that her attacks have made any short term difference.
One of the reasons the Q-Poll is the most closely watched poll in the state is because of its large sample size. Unlike most of the other polls in the state, the Q-Poll is big enough that you can dig down into the numbers and still retain statistical significance. And when you do that with this poll, as FiveThirtyEight.com has done, the results are actually pretty surprising:
Obama gained 12 points in Philadelphia, and 13 points in Allegheny county, which includes Pittsburgh. He also gained 8 points in the Northwest region (Erie is the largest city there) and 9 points in the Northeast (Scranton), both of which include plenty of white, working-class folks. On the other hand, he lost 9 points in the Philadelphia suburbs (Bucks County, et. al.) and 11 points in the Southeast portion of the state, which includes both some Pittsburgh satellite suburbs and some rural regions. He also lost 5 points in the central portion of the state.
That's not much on which to stake a claim on there that 'bittergate' is hurting Obama among working class Pennsylvanians; if anything the trendlines are slightly favorable for him in industrial towns like Erie and Scranton. It may be hurting him in the 'burbs, however, while helping in the cities.Also interesting: Clinton leads by just two points (49-47) among voters who are choosing their candidate on "shares values"; that's actually down from last week, when she led that category by a 51-42 margin. Obama did lose ground on "trust", however. It may be that bittergate ultimately goes to making Obama look political (telling Pennsylvania voters one thing and San Franciscans another), but not so much "out of touch".
The values question is interesting because it suggests that in fact there has been a backlash of sorts, but that it has worked in such a way that it has been offset by other factors. And some subsequent data from SurveyUSA confirms this. Back to FiveThirtyEight:
SurveyUSA also conducted a separate poll of Harrisburg, PA voters. A 51-41 majority of Democrats, as well as a majority of independents, said they agreed with Obama's bitter comments; on the other hand, a 62-32 majority of Republicans disagreed. By a small majority, however, Republicans said were not offended by Obama's comments; that was also the case for a 2:1 majority of Democrats.
So again, the top-line numbers don't yet show any signs of a backlash, but underneath the potential still appears to be there. Ultimately, however, my argument about pivot points was really much more of a long-term argument than a short-term one, and given the mixed nature of the data I'm certainly not anywhere near ready to give up on it yet. But I'm growing increasingly suspicious of my prediction that this controversy would allow Obama to close the gap in PA. I'm not ready to give up on it yet, but... We'll know more as we watch the polls over the next few days - particularly the ones that come post-debate.
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