The Obama surge continues - he leads Gallup by 7

After Super Tuesday I wrote that given the trends of the time Obama would soon be up by ten or so points over both Clinton and McCain. The Gallup 3 day track has shown Obama up 7 points over Senator Clinton for 3 days now, showing a permanent structural change in the race. In this latest track he is up 49-42.

t is amazing to look back and see that Hillary led by 20 points just a few weeks ago. As I wrote then what this means is that Ohio and Texas are going to be nail biters, as these states over the next two weeks begin to more accurately reflect the big national trends, and see lots of the two candidates.

What makes these numbers particularly interesting is Clinton's strength in what her campaign has called the "quality" states of CA, FL and NY, whose people make up a quarter of the nation's population. Assuming she still is leading Obama in these states, it means that his margins in other parts of the country - as been born out in the election so far - is huge. In the Gallup track Clinton led 52-39 on Feb 5th. Since then the race has shifted by a net of 20 points. It will take a while for the state polls to catch up on all this, perhaps not till the end of this week or perhaps mid week next week. My guess is by mid week next week - even before March 4th - Obama will be up over both other Senators by ten points in national polls, starting a round of stories and analysis about whether he has become the frontrunner not just in the Democratic primary but in the whole election....

But in the next two weeks we have Wisconsin and Hawaii and two more debates. So there is ample opportunity for Senator Clinton to change the emerging narrative, but it is getting harder by the day.

Update: The new Gallup track has Senator Clinton pulling within one. A blip? Clinton attacks starting to take effect? Too early to tell.