Unless the polls are massively wrong, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will win their respective primaries in New York. Indiana's primary is likely to be a crucial race for Trump. And a significant number of Americans still believe Obamacare introduced death panels. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, April 19, 2016.
CLINTON LEADS IN NEW YORK, BUT THE MARGIN MATTERS - Although Sen. Bernie Sanders is closing in on Hillary Clinton in the national polls, he hasn’t managed to move up much in the New York polling average. But since Democrats allocate their delegates proportionally according to the candidates’ vote shares, the margin by which she wins is important -- and the polls vary widely on the margin between the candidates. In the 14 polls released since the beginning of April, Clinton has led by as little as 6 points and as much as 18 points. A narrow victory would still give Sanders a large number of the state’s 247 pledged delegates. A larger victory would add to Clinton’s delegate lead and substantially damage Sanders’ claims that he can catch up.
NEW YORK REPUBLICANS FAVOR TRUMP BY A LARGE MARGIN - Donald Trump has taken 50 percent or more in every poll released in April, with the exception of a survey from the Republican firm 0ptimus, which included a large proportion of independents. Trump consistently leads the rest of the field by more than 30 points in the HuffPost Pollster averages. The question is exactly how many of New York’s 95 delegates that translates into. Trump seems almost assured to win 14 delegates awarded based on the statewide result, but the remaining 81 are allocated by congressional district, with each of New York’s 27 districts awarding three delegates to the winner in that district. That means Trump could win by a large margin statewide and still lose some delegates if individual districts support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, both of whom have been working to peel those delegates away. FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten has a district-by-district preview of where those efforts could be most fruitful for the anti-Trump Republicans.
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Cruz and Kasich aiming for New York's conservative Jewish voters - Clare Malone: "In the New York primary Tuesday, Cruz and Kasich are looking to win delegates with a demographic you might not expect to get a lot of attention in a Republican primary: Jewish voters. Kasich and Cruz have been spotted musing about the Old Testament and Dayenu-ing in recent days…The 10th Congressional District, with the city’s largest Jewish population, has the city’s second-largest Republican population. Trump has 65 percent support in the Staten Island-dominated 11th district, but looks weaker in the 10th, according to the Optimus survey. He has only 39.5 percent of the vote in the 10th, Kasich has 31.7 percent and Cruz has 21.3, meaning it’ll be a scrum to get one precious delegate." [538]
CLINTON, SANDERS AND TRUMP HAVE TRIED TO CAMPAIGN AS ‘REAL’ NEW YORKERS - Bob Tognetti: Three presidential candidates have close ties to the Empire State, and are hoping to leverage that into primary votes….But an NBC News/WSJ/Marist New York poll shows that it’s party identification, not background, that really determines whether voters think Trump, Clinton or Sanders is the most authentic New Yorker. Overall, 41 percent of registered voters in New York say Trump is the “real New Yorker” of the three candidates. Twenty-five percent select Sanders, and 23 percent choose Clinton…. Among Republicans, 76 percent believe Trump is the true New Yorker, compared to just 22 percent of Democratic voters. Meanwhile, just 8 percent of Republicans choose Clinton, compared to 36 percent of Democrats, and another 8 percent of Republicans select Sanders, versus 33 percent of Democrats. [HuffPost]
NEW YORK MIGHT NOT BE THE MOST CRUCIAL STATE TO TRUMP’S NOMINATION - Nate Cohn: "If you divvy up the states by expected results, Mr. Trump wins big in the East and West Virginia, loses the winner-take-all rural Western states, and earns his expected share of proportional delegates in Washington, Oregon and New Mexico. That puts him about 175 delegates short of the required 1,237. Only two real tossup states remain: California (172 delegates) and Indiana (57). You can see the basic issue: If he doesn’t win Indiana, he has to sweep California and get some lucky breaks elsewhere, which isn’t realistic....But even though Indiana may be pivotal — it awards its delegates on a winner-take-all basis by congressional district and statewide — the state is a big mystery because there hasn’t been a single poll there." [NYT]
MICHIGANDERS BLAME GOVERNOR SNYDER'S ADMINISTRATION FOR FLINT WATER CRISIS - Kate Abbey-Lambertz: "One-fifth of Michigan residents polled blame Gov. Rick Snyder (R) for the avoidable lead poisoning emergency in the city of Flint...57 percent of respondents said Snyder's administration was most responsible for the city's water crisis. That includes the governor himself, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Darnell Earley, the former emergency manager of Flint who was appointed by Snyder….The governor’s approval rating has reached its lowest point since he took office in 2011... Though 41.8 percent of Michigan residents polled called his performance 'excellent' or 'good' in the fall, only one-quarter felt that way in the most recent poll. Meanwhile, the portion of respondents rating the governor’s performance as “poor” climbed from 20.9 to 44.1 percent." [HuffPost]
DISTURBING NUMBER OF AMERICANS THINK OBAMACARE HAS DEATH PANELS - Jeffrey Young: "New survey data reveals a depressing 29 percent of respondents still believe the Affordable Care Act includes provisions allowing a committee to cut off medical care for people at the ends of their lives. Those polled were asked, 'To the best of your knowledge, do you think that President Obama’s health reform law establishes a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care — sometimes referred to as ‘death panels,’ or not?' It doesn’t. Period. But just 40 percent of the more than 1,000 people polled last month gave the correct answer. And three in 10 weren’t even sure." [HuffPost]
AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY BELIEVE TAX SYSTEM FAVORS THE RICH- HuffPollster: "Two-thirds of all Americans think the country’s tax system favors the wealthy, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov survey. Sixty-seven percent say the system is biased toward the rich, while a combined 17 percent think it favors the middle class or poor. Just 4 percent believe everyone is treated equally. That perception crosses income lines, with a strong majority in every age bracket believing that wealthy Americans have the advantage. It’s also held by both 82 percent of Democrats and 66 percent of independents. Republicans are less convinced — while 47 percent believe the tax system favors the wealthy, 29 percent think it does more to help the poor….But the real gap has to do with income level. Fifty-eight percent of Americans in households making $100,000 a year or more, and just over half making between $50,000 and $100,000, say they pay more than their fair share of taxes. Just 28 percent making less than $50,000 say the same." [HuffPost]
TUESDAY'S 'OUTLIERS' - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Matthew Yglesias thinks Bernie Sanders' performance in national polls could help attract superdelegates. [Vox]
Matt Grossmann sees no signs that Sanders will get the superdelegate support that he needs. [Vox]
-Danielle Kurtzleben finds that the electorate is less moderate this election cycle.[NPR]
-Dan Hopkins explains why Sanders does better with independent voters than with registered Democrats. [538]
-Chris Cillizza thinks Hillary Clinton is beatable in a national election, just not by Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. [WashPost]
-Lonna Atkeson explains how primary “position” helps determines primary election turnout. [HuffPost]
-A study finds that most California voters registered in the American Independent Party joined it by accident. [LATimes]
-Americans trust Bernie Sanders and John Kasich most on the economy. [Gallup]