The resilience of the Hillary Clinton dead-enders is surprising. CNN reports that the number of holdouts is actually growing.
According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain’s camp is down from one month ago, but — in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party — the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent. In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party’s nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.
In another sign the wounds of the heated primary race have yet to heal, 43 percent of registered Democrats polled still say they would prefer Clinton to be the party’s presidential nominee.
Without looking at the poll’s internals, I’m at a loss to explain this. Further, without raw numbers — or even the poll questions themselves — there’s no way to know what any of this means.
If people are still identifying themselves as “Clinton backers” this long after her concession, then they’re almost by definition not resigned to supporting Obama. The question simply becomes, How many of them are there? If, though, these are merely people who supported Clinton during the primaries, then we’re dealing with a much more significant phenomenon.
