From Reuters:
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has edged ahead of rival Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire less than a month before the state's nominating primary in the 2008 race for the White House, a new poll showed on Friday.
The Concord Monitor newspaper poll showed the U.S. senator from Illinois leading Clinton 32 percent to 31 percent in New Hampshire, which on January 8 holds the first primary in the run-up to the November 2008 presidential election. The survey had a 4 percentage point error margin.
It mirrors other polls this week showing the New York senator's lead vanishing in New Hampshire, suggesting a fiercely competitive race in a state where the former first lady led by a comfortable margin just weeks ago.
On Wednesday, a WMUR-TV/CNN poll showed the race a statistical dead heat with Clinton leading Obama 31 percent to 30 percent. In September, Clinton enjoyed a commanding lead of more than 20 points over Obama.
(After the jump, more from Reuters and a good recap of Joe's previous analysis of why things are looking more ominous for Hillary.)
Joe has explained several times why now is a bad time to be losing momentum, including here:This is a bad time to be losing momentum for any candidate. Tomorrow starts the holiday season. Even in the early states, it's going to be hard for voters to focus on caucuses and primaries which fall in early January. It's going to be very difficult for Clinton to regain momentum during December. The first caucus in Iowa is January 3rd. There's almost no time to refocus the attention of voters after the holidays but before voting actually starts.
More of Joe's analysis here:Hillary Clinton has been the frontrunner -- and is the closest thing to an incumbent in the race for President on either side. It's hard for me to understand how anyone who doesn't support Clinton now will somehow learn something new about her that will garner their vote between now and early January. On the other hand, it seems that since late October, voters have been learning things they don't like about Hillary Clinton -- or are having doubts about her confirmed....
A lot of people are trying to figure out what it all means. We'll know for sure in early January. Clearly, there is concern over at the Clinton camp, because Hillary's guru, Mark Penn, felt it necessary to provide his spin on the polls over at the Clinton blog. (He's more optimistic than Hunt or Rasmussen).
Now, if any campaign staff is capable of turning this one around, it's Team Hillary. But, then again, Team Hillary got themselves into this mess. So unless someone turns around Team Hillary first, we may be seeing an upset.
