New Poll from PPP confirms that PA is a close race though Hillary is still the favored to win. Clinton retakes the lead after trailing Obama by 2 points in the previous PPP poll.
Clinton's rebound in the last week has come almost entirely from improving her standing with her core demographics of women, whites, and senior citizens. Her lead with woman went from 10 points to 16, with white voters it went from 11 to 17, and with voters over 65 from 16 to 21.
I think this result is more in line with other polls I have seen in recent days. That doesn't mean this poll is corrected but it does reflect what Rasmussen, Strategic Vision and Quinnipiac poll found in the race. The Obama camp must be happy with this result and if I was running his campaign, I would undertake another bus tour in the final week of the contest. Clearly,the reading from this poll and, many others, is that his bus tour was very successful.
A few interesting points about this PPP poll vs SurveyUSA poll. The PPP poll finds that black make up 17% of the electorate vs surveyUSA 14%. I happen to find this number confirming a point i made yesterday in this blog about what share of the electorate blacks are likely to be
Also, SurveyUSA has Hillary leading Obama in the Southeast region[The Philadelphia area and its surrounding] of the state a result I found unlikely[Good analysis about the PA polls from 411mania here].The new PPP confirms this suspicion was corrected and that, in the contrary, Obama is leading in this region rich with black and latte drinkers
New Strategic Vision also shows a close race:
Clinton 47%
Obama 42%
Hillary does better against John McCain.
Clinton 45%
McCain 42%
When it's Obama we have
McCain 48%
Obama 41%
So at this point of the race Obama is about 3-6% points behind and can make further inroads in the final two weeks.
Two other good analysis about PA polls from Pollster and TNR