A "Surprising" Poll: Obama leads McCain by 8

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Hey, did you think Barack Obama was beating John McCain? Well, you might be "surprised"! Check back in a couple of hours for the shocker:

A new L.A. Times/KTLA poll tested the proposition in McCain matchups with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And in at least one of the scenarios, the results may surprise many folks.

We aren't at liberty to reveal the exact results yet; for that, check out our homepage (latimes.com) about 5 p.m. EDT today (2 p.m. PDT).(LA Times blog 5/23/08)

And so, dutifully, I check back.  Whoa...it says the same thing as the PPIC poll! I am blown away by...by...well, I'm not.

Obama led McCain in the poll, 47-40%; in a Clinton matchup with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, she got 43%, he held steady at 40%. (LA Times blog 5/23/08)

This poll is substantially closer than the very comfy lead that Obama held against McCain in the PPIC poll, but nonetheless, this is hardly shocking.  I did find the sub-headline in the LA Times article interesting, quite similar to what I had said the other day about the "big states" argument: "Clinton would also defeat McCain in the fall, but by a smaller margin. The numbers undercut Clinton's argument that she is the Democrat best able to deliver big states in the general election."