For Hillary Clinton, no news is the best news for her New Hampshire campaign. As for any frontrunner, boring is good. And so far, compared to Al Gore's and John Kerry's stumbles out of the gate here in 1999 and 2003, Clinton has had a remarkably smooth ride to date. She's shown up here early and often, scooped up a big handful of endorsements, and avoided gaffes. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
The latest CNN/WMUR NH Primary Poll was another in a series of yawns. When the big news out of the survey was "Gosh, Bill Richardson's at 10 percent!", well, let's assume that Kathleen Strand had a pretty good night's sleep.
What's remarkable in Clinton's June numbers is how closely they resemble her numbers four months ago. Not only is her aggregate number almost identical -- 35 percent overall in February, 36 percent now -- but many of the components of her base have stayed level:
CORE DEMOCRATS
Clinton had the support of 39 percent of registered Democrats in February. She dropped to 31 percent in April (when her overall support fell to 26 percent), but now has rebounded to 38 percent.
MODERATES
33 percent support in February; fell to 26 percent in April; now up to 37 percent.
WOMEN
38 percent in February; down to 28 percent in April; now up to 43 percent.
WORKING CLASS VOTERS
In February, Clinton stood at 37 percent among those with a high school education (or less). That number stayed at 36 percent in April, and now stands at 33 percent.
How about groups that are not strong points for the frontrunner? If past primary patterns hold true, one possible weak point might be highly educated voters who would be more attracted to a reform-minded candidate such as Barack Obama. So far, though, Clinton is holding her own here:
POST-GRADUATE EDUCATED
In February, Clinton stood at 28 percent among these voters, 7 points lower than her overall standing of 35 percent among all voters surveyed. In April, this number fell to 19 percent (again, 7 points lower than her overall showing of 26 percent). In June, she rebounded to 30 percent, 6 points lower than her overall standing of 36 percent.
So far, these voters are not a strength for Clinton, but one suspects that the campaign will be happy if they do not become more of a weakness.
LIBERALS
Clinton's vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq (plus her husband's legacy of moderate Democratic governance) led many to believe that liberal Democrats would look elsewhere in the primaries. That forecast may yet come true, but as of now, Clinton again is holding her own.
In February, she scored 37 percent among self-described liberals. That number dipped to 27 percent in April, and has rebounded somewhat now to 31 percent.
One group that did not return to Clinton in June:
MALE VOTERS
In February, she stood at 30 percent support among males; that number dropped to 24 percent in April -- and stayed at 24 percent in June. As a result, the gender gap in the Clinton vote has increased from 8 percentage points in February to 19 percentage points in June. And Clinton's support among males lags 12 points behind her overall showing in June.
