CA-Field Poll: Obama pulls within 2 points of Clinton

[Tender Branson]

A startling surge of support for Barack Obama has catapulted the Illinois senator into a virtual tie with Hillary Rodham Clinton in California's Democratic presidential primary, a Field Poll released Saturday shows.

Arizona Sen. John McCain lengthened his lead in the state Republican primary, grabbing a 32 to 24 percent edge among likely voters over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was at 13 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 10 percent.

But the Democratic numbers are the shocker. Clinton, a longtime California favorite, saw her once-commanding lead slip to two percentage points, 36 to 34 percent, in the new survey. That's down from the New York senator's 12 percentage point lead in mid-January and a 25 percentage point margin over Obama in October.

But with 18 percent of Democratic voters still undecided just days before Tuesday's primary, the election is still up for grabs, said Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director.

...

Clinton now clings to a bare 45 to 43 percent lead over McCain in a projected California presidential vote, down dramatically from her 17 percentage point margin just two weeks ago. Obama now holds a stronger 47 to 40 percent margin over the Arizona senator, but that's only half the 14 percentage point advantage he had in mid-January.

Both Democrats still run well ahead of Romney, collecting more than 50 percent of the vote in those matchups.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/02/MNF7UR6FE.DTL&tsp=1

[Tender Branson]

The General Election polls seem a bit off though ...

[Tender Branson]

Why didn't Obama spend his last couple of days in CA? Hillary's been barnstorming the state for the last 2 1/2 days.  Competing in ID and DE (two state which he'll probably win anyway) when hundreds of delegates are at stake in CA makes little sense to me.

Explanation:

With just 23 delegates at stake for the Democrats, only North Dakota and Alaska have fewer than Idaho among the Feb. 5 states (Delaware, where Obama is expected to visit Sunday, also has 23). That has left some scratching their heads about why Obama would bother, with such little time available.

The answer, in part, lies in the flashy graphics the television networks will display on election night showing what states Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton have won.

Obama's campaign believes that if it can win its fair share of states and in diverse locations, those maps will be shaded with his color and could help make a case that he is the most able to win a general election. (And Idaho, with its long panhandle, takes up a fair bit of space on the national map.)