May 6th is the new March 4th
On May 6th, North Carolina and Indiana go to the polls. If Hillary loses in both of those states she is going to be under unbelievable pressure to drop out or dial her campaign right down—expect to see various so far, unaligned party big-wigs come out and tell her time’s up if she gets beaten in both states. To date, the polls have shown Obama up in North Carolina and Clinton ahead in Indiana. But the LA Times has a poll out later on today which apparently has Obama up five in Indiana. If that’s right and this finding is confirmed by other polls, that’s huge news—the last poll there had Hillary up by 16.
If Hillary is to actually win the nomination, rather than just prolong the contest, she needs to upset Obama in North Carolina. If she were to do that, it would suggest both that voters are having second thoughts about Obama and that his ability to make states Bush won by comfortable margins competitive is overblown. These factors might just give the super delegates pause and allow Hillary to somehow pull this off although, as Charlie Cook notes, it’ll take an awful lot to deny Obama the nomination from here.