Progress Illinois

More from Clinton chief strategist Geoff Garin's conference call with reporters today:

GARIN: A few brief comments to put last night in perspective. Indiana was obviously a close outcome, but it's an outcome about which we feel very, very good. It represents first time, I believe, in this race that Senator Clinton has come from behind to achieve a primary victory. And that in the face of very substantial obstacles in terms of a great deal of spending by Senator Obama at the end, including a last-minute $300,000 purchase in the Chicago media market for one day of advertising. The Chicago media market ended up representing over 20 percent of the state. It gave him a substantial head start and we feel, under those circumstances, coming from -- in our internal polling -- 8 points down with seven days to go to a two-point victory is a significant accomplishment, especially when you put it in the context of what happened in the other states neighboring Illinois, including Wisconsin. We think in the sweep of things it represents significant progress for Senator Clinton and it is a good victory under challenging circumstances.

It's easy for the Clinton camp to frame Indiana as a "come from behind" victory when they're pegging that characterization to internal polling. The public polls, however, show Clinton with a rather consistent lead over the past couple months. Check out Pollster.com's rundown, illustrated on the right (Clinton = purple, Obama = orange).

(More after the jump ...)

Also, we now have Garin's exact comments about the white vote in North Carolina:

GARIN: North Carolina does, also in an important respect, represent progress for us. When we began in North Carolina, coming out of Pennsylvania, in our internal polling and much of the public polling we were running exactly even with white voters in North Carolina.

Obviously, we don't know what the Clinton campaign's internal polling said at the time. But as I noted before, here are the breakdowns among the white electorate in North Carolina in the four Survey USA and Public Policy Polling surveys released after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary:

PPP, 4/27: Clinton 56%, Obama 35%

Survey USA, 4/28: Clinton 61%, Obama 30%

Survey USA, 5/4: Clinton 62%, Obama 32%

PPP, 5/4: Clinton 60%, Obama 34%

Here are some additional polls from around that time. They too show Clinton with consistent, substantial leads among white voters:

Mason Dixon, 4/29: Clinton 62%, Obama 29%

Insider Advantage, 4/30: Clinton 54%, Obama 33%

Research 2000, 5/2: Clinton 66%, Obama 30%

Zogby, 5/2: Clinton 47%, Obama 37%