Obamania Spreads Through Texas, Threatens Ohio

It looks increasingly like March 4 will be the end of the road for Hillary Clinton. As soon as Obama wrapped up Wisconsin a week ago, he turned his attention--and that of his enormously enthusiastic campaign--on Texas and Ohio.

As has been the case in state after state, give Obama a few days to get his massive and inspiring rallies going, and he soon has voters converting to his candidacy.

It appears that's exactly what's happening in Texas and Ohio. New polls in both states today continue to show Obama surging, with an outright lead in Texas and rapidly narrowing the gap in Ohio.

Here's the latest: Survey USA has Obama up 4 points in Texas, leading Hillary by 49%-45%. This is the same lead Obama had in a CNN poll released yesterday. One interesting stat in the Survey USA poll: about 25% of the respondents in that poll who indicated they were likely to vote in the Democratic primary have ALREADY voted--among those voters, Clinton leads 51%-46%. Given how large Clinton's lead was just a couple weeks ago, those are NOT encouraging numbers for Camp Hillary, as they likely indicate the best she could possibly hope to achieve in a "must win" state. (This poll also shows that while Obama still trails amongst Hispanic voters, the gap is closing fast.)

[For more on the massive turnout in early voting in Texas, particularly amongst Democrats, see "Early Voters Swarm In Texas," from the Dallas Morning News.]

There is also a new American Research Group poll out for Texas, which has Obama up by 8 points, 50%-42%.

Today is also the first time that Obama has led Texas in the RealClearPolitics.com moving average of polls.

In short, barring a game-changer, Obama is now quite likely to take Texas.

In Ohio, Clinton still leads, but her lead is shrinking. With a week to go, we wouldn't put it out of Obama's reach to carry Ohio, especially given that polls in Wisconsin showed a close race, but in the end Obama walloped Hillary there. A new Rasmussen poll in Ohio has Hillary up by 5 points, 48%-43%. That's down from 17% two weeks ago and 8% a week ago. Imagine what it's like watching these poll numbers if you're in the Clinton campaign--it's really unbelievable.

We think it will all be over for the Democrats on March 4, and thank goodness--the deadlocked convention scenarios we were pondering were quite ugly. That said, we truly feel bad for Hillary, and while we like Obama a lot, we still think there's a significant element of risk in his nomination.