Fun with crosstabs: President, Senate

Some interesting observations, delving deeper into the crosstabs from our North Carolina poll this week:

-Among voters undecided in a possible Clinton/McCain matchup, 64% support Barack Obama and 11% support John McCain in a possible Obama/McCain matchup. Among voters undecided in a possible Obama/McCain matchup, 42% support Hillary Clinton and 10% support John McCain in a possible Clinton/McCain matchup.

What does that all mean? It means that while folks who supported Clinton or Obama in the primary might not be committing to vote for the other Democrat in the general election, they're not for the most part saying they intend to vote for McCain either. My money says most of those folks will end up voting for the Democratic nominee, which means that our poll this week probably undersold the standing of both Clinton and Obama.

Such is the pitfall of general election polling at this point in the game, and it means that Obama probably matches up better against McCain state by state better than a lot of the most recent surveys show.

-More evidence of that: 42% of the undecideds in a possible McCain/Obama matchup are Democrats, while just 22% are Republicans. The numbers are more dramatic in a Clinton/McCain matchup- 64% of undecideds are Democrats, while just 14% are Republicans.

-Kay Hagan has more room to move up in her match with Elizabeth Dole than Dole does. 55% of undecided voters in that race are Democrats, while just 24% are Republicans. If Hagan can shore up her standing with her own party, that's an even closer race than our poll showed.