PRINCETON, NJ -- The increase in support for Hillary Clinton at the national level that Gallup saw in interviewing conducted Sunday and Monday continued in interviewing Tuesday night. Gallup Poll Daily tracking conducted Feb. 3-5 now includes three consecutive days in which Clinton has done well, giving her a 13-percentage point lead over Barack Obama, 52% to 39%.
Democratic preferences in Tuesday night's interviews -- mostly conducted before Super Tuesday election results were known -- were similar to Sunday and Monday night's interviews. Gallup Poll Daily tracking will not begin to reflect the impact of Tuesday's voting on national Democratic preferences until tomorrow.
Obama had been competitive with Clinton in interviews conducted Feb. 2 (as well as earlier last week), but those interviews have now dropped out of Gallup's continuous three-day rolling average reporting.
In contrast, the nomination preferences of national Republican voters have hardly moved in recent days. As of the Feb. 3-5 Gallup Poll Daily tracking, John McCain leads the Republican field with 41% of the vote, compared with 25% for Mitt Romney and 21% for Mike Huckabee. This is virtually identical to the Gallup Poll Daily tracking figures for the Republican race reported yesterday. In fact, there has been little change in national Republican preferences since Rudy Giuliani exited the race in late January.
Again, these numbers will begin to reflect the results of Super Tuesday voting in tomorrow's average. -- Lydia Saad
Methodology: Gallup is interviewing 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008. The results reported here are based on combined data from Feb. 3-5, 2008, including interviews with 1,022 Republican and Republican-leaning voters, and 1,258 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.
For results based on these samples, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.Click below for more on these topics:
