I came across today's Gallup polltracking presidential nomination preferences in the democratic party. According to this poll, Obama should have no problem uniting the democratic party behind his candidacy. Here are a couple of interesting facts from this poll:
Barack Obama's lead over Hillary has increased from four percentage-point in early May (O:49% C: 45%)to 16 points from May 16-18 (O:55% C:39%).
The broadening of Obama's appeal for the nomination seen in Gallup's May 16-18 polling is fairly widespread, with the percentage favoring him increasing among most demographic categories of Democratic voters. However, as a result, certain groups that were already highly supportive of Obama for the nomination -- men, 18- to 29-year-olds, postgrads, and upper-income Democrats -- are now overwhelmingly in his camp. Obama is currently favored among these groups by a 2-to-1 margin, or better, over Clinton. At the same time, support for Clinton among some of her traditionally stalwart support groups -- women, Easterners, whites, adults with no college education, and Hispanics -- has fallen below 50%.
Obama leads Clinton in the following catergories:
non hispanic whites:
Women: O: 49% C:46%
High School Grads or less: O:47% C:46%
Hispanics: O: 51% H: 44%
Asian: O:52% C:43%
Clinton's last bastion of support is not surprisingly women over 50. However, Obama is closing the gap in that category as well.
The only major demographic group still supporting Clinton to the tune of 51% or more is women aged 50 and older. This group's preferences have changed little during May, at the same time that Clinton's support among younger men (those 18 to 49) has declined by nearly 10 points.
I expect however, this age group to rally behind Obama in due time, as long as he commit the time and effort to court them. I am very optimistic in that respect as even Geraldine Ferarro seems to backtrack from her earlier remarks about not possibly voting for Obama. The Page reported that she complained on NBC Today that her comments to the NY Times about possibly not voting for Obama have been misinterpreted.
AS Gallup reported, bottom line is that
[Obama] has expanded his position as the preferred candidate of men, young adults, and highly educated Democrats, and has erased Clinton's advantages with most of her prior core constituency groups, including women, the less well-educated, and whites.
As I wrote earlier this is great news for Obama which one could attribute to his strategy of shifting to general campaign mode and in the process lavishing nothing but praises on Clinton. I truly believe that at this pace it is only a matter of time until all key constituencies in the democratic party realize that there is a so much at stake in this election that we need to focus more on making the future and less on making history for any particular group.