by Glenn Thrush
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LAS VEGAS — There’s no question that Barack Obama is gaining on Hillary Clinton nationally — with recent national surveys showing BHO erasing HRC’s once-20-plus national lead to within 5-15 points.
If the new Zogby/Reuters poll is to believed that margin is now down to a statistically-insignificant 1 point. That may be true — and it’s getting reported everywhere as an earth-shaker.
However, as we’ve noted before, Z has a questionable history (predicting, for instance, that Al D’Amato would beat Chuck Schumer in 1998) and Pollster.com recently rated him near the bottom of his profession in terms of reliability. And, hot off the presses, comes a new USA Today/Gallup poll, taken over the weekend (with a sample size double that of Zogby’s 459), showing her with a big bump after New Hampshire and a 12-point lead nationally. Interestingly, she seems to have taken some of her support out of John Edwards, confounding the conventional wisdom that ex-Edwards voters will flock to fellow Change-Agent Obama.
Clinton: 45%; up from 33% last week.
Obama: 33%, unchanged.
John Edwards: 13%; down from 20%.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich: 1%; down from 3%.
Mike Gravel: 1%; vs. 0.
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)