New York: One of the more surprising twists in a surprising year is that despite the obvious Republican disadvantages in this election cycle, John McCain is matching up pretty well against Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in tests being conducted by national polls.
Pew Research Centre and CBS/New York Times polls show Obama and Clinton holding only modest leads over McCain, while other national surveys - notably AP/Ipsos and NBC/Wall Street Journal - have McCain running about even against the Democratic candidates.
Electability is an issue, and one that both Obama and Clinton are likely to use to woo the superdelegates. But our polling suggests that neither candidate has a demonstrable advantage to tout. Where and among whom each candidate ran particularly well in the primaries is certainly no indicator of how they will match up against McCain.
Assuming a win in the Pennsylvania primary, the Clinton campaign can be expected to make the case that having won all of the major swing-state primaries, the former First Lady is more likely than Obama to carry these states in a general election. But a breakout of the results of recent surveys would argue otherwise.
An analysis of Pew Research Centre surveys conducted in late February and March finds the two Democratic candidates running about equally well against McCain among voters in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Obama led McCain 52 percent to 40 per cent among a representative sample of voters living in these states, while Clinton bested McCain by a statistically comparable 51 per cent to 42 per cent margin.
However, the same analysis shows that while Obama ran better in smaller swing states and in the red states than Hillary Clinton, the advantage does not necessarily carry over to the general election. He fares no better than she in the match-up polls among voters in states that have gone heavily for Republican presidential candidates in recent years. McCain holds a significant lead over both Democratic candidates; 51 per cent to 43 per cent over Clinton and 50 per cent to 42 per cent over Obama in red states. But more reassuring to Democrats is that Pew's analysis of the blue states finds that each of their candidates trounce McCain by an equal margin: 20 percentage points.
The primaries have shown that each has strengths and weaknesses with certain types of voters. Clinton polled better in the primaries among Democrats, especially conservatives, while Obama attracted more support from independents. Demographically, he outdrew her among men, younger voters, the affluent and the better educated. Her constituency has been more female, older and working class.
Race, of course, has been a major factor in the nominating contests. But it is not really possible to factor race or Obama's counter-balancing appeal to independents or any of these other variables - positive or negative - to come up with a who's-more-electable quotient for either candidate versus McCain.
