Nicholas B. Jackson

Pollster John Zogby is playing it safe with his bets on Texas, tossing around a lot of ifs and maybes. Likely the last poll that we’ll see before the Tuesday primary–and the most comprehensive in at least the past week–the Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby numbers that were released last night put Obama ahead of Clinton 47.2 percent to 43.8 percent (margin of error set at 3.7 percentage points).

The numbers–taking into account the margin of error–are too close for either camp to get excited or dismayed. There is no way of knowing what will happen tomorrow until we all sit down to watch John King work his magic on the CNN map.

Zogby notes, however, that Obama has strong leads in Houston and Dallas. Because of this, he projects that the senator will “walk away, I think, with a lot of delegates in Texas” despite the split popular vote.

A quick breakdown of the polling data from The Houston Chronicle:

In the Sunday tracking poll, Obama’s support among white respondents in Texas increased by 4 percentage points over Saturday’s survey to 46 percent. Clinton was favored by 47.7 percent of whites.

Clinton’s support among Hispanics increased by almost 4 points to 56.1 percent, while Obama’s fell to 34.5 percent from 37.8 percent. Obama maintained strong support (about 75 percent) among blacks voters. Clinton’s backing among women increased in the latest poll, allowing her to regain a small edge over Obama.

Zogby said Clinton maintained her strong lead in heavily Hispanic South Texas and that Obama had taken a “very slight lead” in East Texas, which could decide the popular vote.

• Originally published: Texas Monthly 2008.03.03