Mike Boudo
Call it the "Hillary Gap." Barack Obama is positioned to win Massachusetts with or without her as his running mate, but he'd get many more votes with her.
And the difference defines the division between Democrats here. "I am standing with Senator Obama to say yes, we can," Sen. Clinton declared when she endorsed him. But many of her Bay State supporters say, "No, we don't." Our exclusive 7News-Suffolk University poll shows just 54% of her voters will now vote for Obama, while 20% will not, and 26% are undecided.
How badly do Hillary's backers want her to be vice president? Well, if Obama picks her, then 80% of them say they'll vote for the ticket, 26% more than he gets without her. Sen. Obama said, "She is an extraordinary leader of the Democratic Party."
Similarly, Obama's supporters aren't as enthusiastic about Hillary as he says he is. More than half of his voters here--55%--do not want her to be his running mate...and 10% say they won't vote for him if he does pick her. So while she's out of the race, she's still right in the middle of the Democrat's dilemma, and John McCain loves it: Sen. McCain said, "I think there are a lot of Senator Clinton's supporters who will support me."
Sen. McCain should also love our poll finding that 68% of Republican voters in Massachusetts do not believe he's too old to be president. But Mitt Romney may not like our poll as much...since very few of the Republicans we surveyed think McCain will choose him as his running mate. Only 38% say yes...44% no...17% are undecided:
"It's kind of like the yin and the yang. You've got the core Romney supporters who wanted him to be president so badly, and you've got the independent voters who didn't think he did such a good job as Governor, so the result is more people say he won't be the VP," Suffolk University Pollster David Paleologos said.
Head to head, Massachusetts looks to stay blue...with Obama beating McCain 53 to 30, a 23 point margin, which is smaller than the spread John Kerry beat George Bush by here in 2004, and Al Gore beat Bush by in 2000. Stir our Massachusetts poll numbers together, add a dash of National Primary results, and here's what's cooking for November: a closer race than you might expect.
I'm Andy Hiller, and that's my instinct.
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