THE RACE: The presidential race for Democrats in Pennsylvania

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THE NUMBERS

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 50 percent

Barack Obama, 44 percent

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OF INTEREST:

One week before Pennsylvania’s presidential primary, Clinton is holding the line as front-runner. After three weeks of shifts in Obama’s favor, the percentages in this survey remained unchanged from one taken a week earlier. Support for Obama among the state’s black voters surged to 86 percent, compared with 75 percent a week ago, while Clinton maintained her advantage among whites, 57 percent to Obama’s 37 percent. Twenty-six percent of Clinton supporters said they would vote for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee, while 19 percent of Obama’s backers said they would support McCain if Clinton is the nominee.

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The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted by telephone from April 9-13. It involved interviews 2,103 likely Democratic voters in Pennsylvania. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.