Heated campaign souring Democrats on rivals
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'The family will come back together'
"It is not the same kind of rancor or bitterness" as those years, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart.
If by July 4 the Obama and Clinton campaigns are still maneuvering for advantage at the party's August convention, it will be harder to unify party voters and "Democrats will have done grievous harm to themselves," he said.
Obama and Clinton campaign officials express little concern their fight will leave Democratic voters disaffected come November.
"When the family squabble is over, the family will come back together," said Obama pollster Cornell Belcher.
Current Democratic divisions are "par for the course" at this stage of a campaign," said Clinton strategist Geoffrey Garin.
"I know a lot of party leaders are concerned about this. But the Democratic rank and file doesn't seem to be," Garin said, citing polls showing people want the nomination race to continue.
Negative feelings
Exit polls of voters in this year's Democratic primaries tell a similar tale of hard feelings:
- In Pennsylvania's primary last week, which Clinton won, 68 percent of Obama voters said they would back Clinton against McCain. Just 54 percent of her supporters said they would vote for Obama against the Republican — including less than half her white voters who have not finished college.
- In the 16 states that held primaries on Super Tuesday Feb. 5, a combined 47 percent of Clinton voters said they would be satisfied only if she won the nomination. That figure has grown to 53 percent in the nine states with primaries since then — including 58 percent who said so in Pennsylvania.
- In Pennsylvania, while Clinton voters overall would vote heavily for Obama over McCain, her supporters who expressed displeasure should Obama win the nomination were evenly split in a contest between Obama and the Arizona Republican senator.
- Obama voters have also grown more surly, though more modestly. On Super Tuesday, 44 percent of his supporters said they would only settle for him as nominee — a number that has risen to 49 percent in states voting since that day.
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On Super Tuesday, about half of Clinton's white supporters with less than college degrees said they would be satisfied only if she won the nomination. In voting since then, six in 10 have said so — including 68 percent in Pennsylvania last week.
On the other hand, 46 percent of Obama's black supporters on Super Tuesday said he was the only candidate they wanted to win. That number has edged up to 49 percent since that Feb. 5 voting — including 55 percent in Pennsylvania.
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The findings from the AP-Yahoo News poll are from interviews with 863 Democrats on a panel of adults questioned in November, December, January and April. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it free.
The exit poll is based on in-person interviews with more than 36,000 voters in 28 states that have held primaries this year in which both candidates actively competed. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1 percentage point, larger for some subgroups.
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