The Growing Obama Wave

My first blog post on Obama was back in early November. Following the Democratic debate in Philadelphia, I wrote about the positive post-debate coverage for Obama. The bump in the polls he received combined with the glowing reviews he got after the Jefferson Jackson dinner, gave him some real momentum going into Iowa.

I had also pointed to Mike Luxe's post at Openleft.com:

Time for Obama to Make a Move:

Coming at a time of relative weakness by Hillary, and with a strong J-J performance, Obama is now well-positioned to make a major move forward and take the lead in Iowa. If he does that over the next couple of weeks, he might gain real momentum

That is exactly what has happened. Obama decisively won Iowa and on the eve of the New Hamphire primary, Obama looks like he will beat Clinton in a blowout tomorrow. Over at mydd.com, Jerome Armstrong can't see how Obama can lose by pointing to the most recent polls out of New Hampshire:

Obama up by 13 percent in the Gallup poll of NH:

            Now   Dec
Obama       41    32
Clinton     28    32
Edwards     19    18
Richardson:  6     8

And up by 10 percent in the latest (and most trusted) CNN/WMUR poll (pdf), and look at the trend:

            1/5-6     1/4-5     12/27-30     12/13-17    12/6-10

Obama          39       33        30         26          30
Clinton        29       33        34         38          31
Edwards        16       20        17         14          16
Richardson      7        4         5          8           7
Kucinich        2        2         2          2           3

As I wrote on Friday, Obama's win in Iowa saw a major increase in youth voter turnout and incredible excitement among the caucus-goers. The huge amount of media attention given to the subsequent polling and the constant coverage of the horse-race is only helping Obama. It will now come down to voter turnout and I expect a repeat of the Obama wave in Iowa.

According to Chris Bowers, Obama won Iowa because of Liberals and Progressives who turned out en masse:

I can't stand the zombie narrative about Obama winning on a wave of post-partisan and post-ideological voters. The data shows the opposite to clearly be the case, with 75% of Obama's Iowa support in coming from self-identified Democrats. Further, not only did Obama also clean up among self-identified liberals, but younger voters are an overwhelmingly liberal group in Iowa

In addition, we are seeing an Obama surge in South Carolina,

Two new post-Iowa polls show Obama getting a huge double digit bounce in South Carolina. Results of Rasmussen Reports (553 LVs, Jan. 6, MOE +/- 4%) and Survey USA (579 LVs, 1/4-6, +/- 4.2%) are as follows:

	Rasmussen (12/16)	Survey USA (12/17-18)
Obama	42 (33)	50 (39)
Clinton	30 (33)	30 (41)
Edwards	14 (17)	16 (17)

You'll recall that polling after the Oprah Winfrey SC event indicated that African-American voters were moving from Clinton to Obama; now, post Iowa, Obama is making huge gains among both black AND white South Carolina voters.

Exciting times in American politics as the world watches New Hampshire. More to come.

~BT