Below The Beltway

After six weeks of waiting, Pennsylvanians will finally vote in a primary that matters tomorrow. In advance of that, the last polls are coming out this morning and none of them are good news for the Clinton Campaign.

First, the last Rasmussen poll, released this morning, shows Clinton leading Obama by only five percentage points:

The final Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the Democratic Presidential Primary in Pennsylvania shows Hillary Clinton with 49% of the vote and Barack Obama with 44%. This election poll was conducted Sunday afternoon and evening.

Overall, with just one day to go, 7% of Pennsylvania voters remain undecided and 3% say there’s a good chance they will change their mind. Rasmussen Markets data shows that Clinton is given a 89.9 % chance of winning in Pennsylvania at this time.

Early in 2008, most Democratic voters viewed both candidates favorably. That is no longer the case. Just 43% of Obama voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton. Only 42% of Clinton voters have a favorable opinion of Obama.

Overall, in the Keystone State, Clinton is now viewed favorably by 71% of Likely Democratic Primary Voters. Obama gets favorable reviews from 69%. Clinton’s favorable ratings in the state peaked in early March at 77%. Obama’s peaked in late March at 73%.

The SurveyUSA poll, meanwhile, finds a slightly larger margin for Clinton, but with a clear trend toward Obama:

A day before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, it appears Hillary Rodham Clinton will fend off a late charge from Barack Obama, the latest SurveyUSA poll found.

The poll, the fifth conducted exclusively for NBC 10 and several other local television stations throughout the state, concluded that women will carry Clinton to victory, despite a surge for Obama in the southeast portion of the state.

According to the survey, Clinton will carry the symbolically important popular vote, but not by enough to gain material advantage in pledged delegates, according to the final SurveyUSA tracking poll for the primary.

(…)

Looking only at SurveyUSA numbers and ignoring the polls that have been released by 12 competing pollsters in Pennsylvania, Obama gained ground in a week when he was largely on defense and off-message. Last week, SurveyUSA had Clinton ahead by 14 points. Monday, in a poll conducted using the identical methodology, SurveyUSA found Clinton ahead by 6 points.

The last Quinnicpiac University Poll, meanwhile, shows little real change between the candidates:

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton leads Illinois Sen. Barack Obama 51 - 44 percent among Pennsylvania likely Democratic primary voters, compared to 50 - 44 percent last week, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

White voters back Sen. Clinton 57 - 38 percent, while blacks back Sen. Obama 84 - 10 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

(…)

“Pennsylvania voters apparently made up their minds a couple of weeks ago and nothing has happened since to change them. An extraordinary turnout effort by Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign could snatch this victory from Sen. Hillary Clinton, but that does not appear likely,” said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Sen. Obama got off message after his ‘bitter’ remarks and never regained his momentum, giving Sen. Clinton the opening to fight another day in Indiana and North Carolina.

In the meantime, Zogby’s tracking poll shows Clinton ahead by six points, ARG shows her ahead by 13, and Public Policy Polling actually has Obama in the lead.

While all these polls show Clinton in the lead — and I think the PPP poll will be shown to be an outlier — it’s fairly clear that she won’t pull off a game-changing win here. Which means we move on to North Carolina, where Clinton is losing in all polls, and Indiana, where she’s holding on to a slight lead.

Further thoughts from Marc Ambinder, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Gandelman, Jerome Armstrong, and Big Tent Democrat.