Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Momentum? Who's Got Momentum?

The blogosphere is full of chatter about whether Romney has "Mittmentum" in Michigan as voters head to the polls today (January 15, 2008). On the Democratic side, the talk is all about how big a percentage of the vote Sen. Hillary Clinton needs to come out of Michigan looking good.

On the Mittmentum issue, Talking Points Memo has a poll round up that will keep people occupied until media exit polls come out later in the day and try to scoop the real results. Actually, the media probably have some exit poll results already, but they are sworn to secrecy until the polls close. Except that somebody probably will forget that part of Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone and part in the Central Time Zone and will release some of the results at 8 p.m. ET.

Back to TPM's poll roundup. Zogby's tracking poll is the latest poll. Here it is (with the change from the previous day's tracking poll in parentheses):

McCain 27% (+0)
Romney 26% (+2)
Huckabee 15% (+0)
Paul 8% (+0)
Thompson 5% (+0)
Giuliani 3% (-3)

TPM quotes pollster John Zogby as saying his call center made extra calls on Monday in order to look for any late movement and found Romney and McCain were virtually tied, with no change before or after 5:30 p.m.

"There just isn’t any momentum here," Zogby said.

Two other polls claim to find Mittmentum.

One is the Mitchell Interactive Poll, who finds Romney with a 6-point lead. The results (with the previous day's tracking pollin parentheses) are:

Romney 35% (+6)
McCain 29% (+2)
Huckabee 12% (+0)

American Research Group's tracking poll finds McCain losing ground and Romney gaining:

McCain 31% (-3)
Romney 30% (+3)
Huckabee 19% (+4)

Neither pollster is giving much credence to Kos' suggestion that Democrats cross over and vote for Romney to keep the GOP in-fighting going.

On the Democratic side, four of five polls in recent days find Sen. Hillary Clinton in the 56 percent range with "uncommitted" in the low 30s. The exception is Mitchell's poll, which has Clinton at 44 percent and uncommitted at 26 percent.

Mitchell claims to be the most accurate pollster in Michigan, having released a poll showing McCain leading in 2000.

Meanwhile, other pollsters are doing their best to muddy the results of the Democratic results.

Detroit News' pollster, Ed Sarpolus, claimed that: "'Ideally, Clinton needs 60 percent or more of votes to rack up a clear and convincing triumph,' said Detroit News/WXYZ pollster Ed Sarpolus. 'Even so, if she pulls in more than 50 percent she can claim the win and move on, he said.'"

That's setting the bar pretty high. I doubt many in the national media will pick up that argument and repeat it, meaning it will do little to tarnish Clinton's victory, should she win, outside of Michigan.

That gives us plenty to chew on for the next few hours.

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