Was That WaPo Poll An Outlier?

The web was buzzing this week about Clinton's sudden crushing of opposition and surge in the polls. Much of it was occasioned by the WaPo poll that gave her over 50 percent support. Drudge and the New York Post kept the meme going. Helpful as ever, Pollster.com has looked at the broader data to see if that poll is a fluke. The answer: probably. When you look at all the polls - and remove Gore - you see a much less volatile race for the Dems:

Clinton has done something more impressive than a sudden crushing. She has moved very slowly and gradually upward. Obama has been trending slightly downward since the spring. But it's basically a holding pattern - in stark contrast to the GOP race which is all over the place. Obama is still higher than he was last December. Mark Blumenthal concludes:

The 53% result for new Post/ABC poll is more of an "outlier" from the regression trend line than any poll conducted this year (it's the purple dot at the extreme top right of plot area). At 53%, the polls estimate of Clinton's support falls a full ten percentage points higher than our current estimate of the trend (42.5%) even without Gore in the race.

I doubt it will shift until a critical mass of primary voters pay attention later this year.