Daily Kos

USAToday/Gallup: Obama 20% lead National

Tue May 13, 2008 at 09:31:06 AM PDT

In the latest USA/Gallup poll, the glaringly obvious omission is the Obama-Clinton percentages.  However, it does reveal the following facts:

73% of Clinton supporters want a Obama-Clinton ticket
43% of Obama supporters want a Obama-Clinton ticket
55% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents want an Obama-Clinton ticket
537 democratic and democratic-leaning independents polled

A small bit of grade school algebra deduces that the Obama-Clinton split is 60% Obama, 40% Clinton.

Grade 5 math on the jump.

The tip-off was that 55%, the total number of those wanting an Obama-Clinton ticket, is a LOT closer to 43%, than it is to 73%.  Intuitively, this tells you that there must be many more Obama supporters than Clinton supporters.

Here it is:

Let C be the number of Clinton supporters
Let O be the number of Obama supporters

The article reveals there are 537 Democrats & Democratic Leaning independents, so:

C + O = 537
O = 537 - C

73% of Clinton supporters want a Obama-Clinton ticket
43% of Obama supporters want a Obama-Clinton ticket
55% of Democrats & Democratic Leaning independents support Obama-Clinton

0.73 C + 0.43 O = 0.55 (C + O)

0.73 C + 0.43 (537 - C) = 0.55 x 537

0.73 C + 230.91 - 0.43 C = 295.35

0.3 C = 295.35 - 230.91

C = 214.8 (Voters)

C% = 214.8 / 537 = 40%
O% = 322.2 / 537 = 60%

Difference: 20%

Caveat: This doesn't account for those polled who replied, "undecided" or "other", as the assumption is that all Clinton supporters + all Obama supporters = all democratic/democratic-leaning supporters.

That's a big, big difference in national numbers.  Perhaps, the biggest yet?

Bigger question:

Why did USAToday/Gallup not publish the Obama-Clinton numbers, when they were obviously polled?

Tags: poll, election, election 2008, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, primary, gallup, usatoday (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

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