Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Obamacans Looming Large in Texas?

Obama and Clinton are currently virtually tied in Texas however the Texas polls may not be accurately reflecting the reality on the ground.
From CNN:

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said Obama is their choice for the party's nominee, while 46 percent backed Clinton.

But taking into account the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie
There is some evidence to suggest that since McCain basically has the nomination in the bag some Texas Republican's are opting to vote against Clinton in the Texas Democratic primary.

From The San Antonio Express News:

Republican and Republican-leaning insiders report that a number of their GOP friends — their own presidential race all but sewn up — are planning to vote in the Democratic primary March 4. They suspect that many independents and moderate Republicans intrigued with Obama's surge will cast Democratic ballots.

"This (Obama-Clinton) is the best race. People want to be where the action is, and the action is with the Democrats," said one lobbyist, who didn't want to be identified but plans to vote in his first Democratic primary in years.

Unlike in many other states, Texas voters don't register by party. Any voter can vote in either primary but not both. The only other restriction is that a voter can't cast a ballot in one party's primary and the other party's runoff, if there is one. Moreover, a voter's choice of primaries doesn't dictate how he or she may vote in November.

More than 245,000 ballots were cast during the first three days of early voting in the 15 most populous counties — a sharp increase over 2004 — and about three-fourths were cast in the Democratic primary.

And if blogtopia is any indicator there are more than a few independents in Texas that want to see Obama win. If only in the Texas primary.