For the first time in a month, Hillary Clinton has pulled ahead of Barack Obama in a national tracking poll, 48-44. According to Gallup, “National Democratic preferences began to shift in Clinton’s favor on Sunday, gained momentum on Monday, and remained favorable to her on Tuesday.” Gallup will publish more tracking data tomorrow revealing whether Senator Clinton earned any further bounce following her Tuesday primary wins. One other piece of data from Gallup might shed some light on the recent Clinton uptick. Voters feel much more confident in Senator Clinton’s and Senator McCain’s levels of experience. 65 percent say Senator Clinton has the experience necessary to be president (32 percent say no). When it comes to McCain, 70 percent say he has the right level of experience (22 percent say no). But the Obama numbers suggest more skepticism about the Illinois Senator. 46 percent say he has enough experience, while 46 percent say no. Gallup points out, as I have in other posts, that only 22 percent of voters say experience is the most important criteria. But those results can’t be encouraging to anyone interested in getting those 3:00 a.m. phone calls. See the “experience” results here. See the full results here.
