The Obama Bump

Hardly surprising, but Barack Obama has received a fairly substantial boost in New Hampshire out of his win in Iowa. In a series of posts at Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz runs down the latest polls over the last couple of days. He first cites a poll from American Research Group gives him a 12-point lead, and Rasmussen puts him up by 10. Tracking polls, which follow trends over a few days, show marked improvement: Zogby demonstrates a 2-point uptick, cutting Hillary Clinton's lead from 6 to 4; Suffolk University shows him narrowing her lead from 12 points to 7. In a later post, he mentions a CNN poll that puts Obama tied with Hillary at 33 percent. Finally, a Research 2000 poll that had already put Obama in the lead by one shows no change between Obama and Hillary, although each strengthen their positions by two points.

With only five days between the Iowa caucuses and the first primary voting in New Hampshire, it's hard to tease out how the Iowa results will affect New Hampshire voters, but if nothing else, Obama's strong showing seems to be giving his candidacy a considerable legitimacy. It's premature to know for sure, but are we replacing one inevitable candidacy for another?