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February 11, 2008

Brown poll finds Clinton leads Obama, McCain in R.I.

Sen. Hillary Clinton holds an 8-point lead over Sen. Barack Obama among likely Rhode Island Democratic presidential primary voters, a Brown University poll released this morning found, as the state gears up for what looks like an increasingly vital March 4 primary.

Those results were based on a survey of 474 voters who indicated they were "very likely to participate" in the Democratic primary. It has a margin of error of about plus or minus five percentage points.

If the primary were today, 36 percent of the voters said they would likely vote for Clinton compared to 28 percent for Obama. Twenty-seven percent said they would vote the "uncommitted" line on the ballot, while 9 percent said they were undecided.

That puts Obama up from where a September poll had him. At that time, 35 percent of likely voters indicated support for Clinton and 16 percent for Obama.

John Edwards, Joseph Biden, Bill Richardson, Christopher Dodd, and Dennis Kucinick were still in the Democratic primary race at that time, and each received single-digit support in that poll; they are not in the new poll.

The overall poll was based on 739 registered voters in Rhode Island and had a margin of error of about plus or minus 4 percentage points. It was conducted done Feb. 9-10 by Darrell M. West, director of Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy and the John Hazen White Sr. Public Opinion Laboratory.

If the presidential election were today, the poll found that voters would support Clinton over Republican John McCain by 43 percent to 32 percent -- a decrease from the 55 percent to 26 percent margin in the September poll for that matchup.

Were it Obama vs. McCain, the new poll found 42 percent supporting the Democrat and 30 percent for McCain.

Meanwhile, President Bush's approval rating sank still lower in Rhode Island, with 14 percent saying they believe he's doing a good job compared 16 percent in the September poll.

Extra: Read the press release on the poll's findings.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 12:03 PM | Permalink

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