Cross-posted at Election Inspection
You know something, I've found it incredibly interesting that Clinton and Obama supporters alike have been under the misguided impression that somehow Hillary Clinton will be able to do in North Carolina what Obama did in Pennsylvania (be able to close the gap significantly). The reason I find it interesting is because if they would listen to themselves, they'd understand that the reason why Obama was able to close the gap, despite Clinton controlling the political machine in the state is because he outspent Clinton 3-1 there.
First of all, I want to get this out of the way: even if you take Clinton at her word over the $10M haul in a day, if you assume that before Pennsylvania's primary, Obama and Clinton were raising the same average amount per day as in March (about $1.3M for Obama and $622K for Clinton), that would mean that Obama would've raised about $27.3M and Clinton would've raised about $13M. Let's say that Clinton raised $10M that day, and Obama was only able to raise the same average as he had in March ($1.3M) that would mean Obama would be at $28.6M and Clinton would be at $23M. Let's also say that Clinton, for the rest of the month, raises $1.4M per day (which would basically mean making over twice as much on average as the previous month) and Obama's average stays the same (which would mean that his fundraising has stalled, which is probably the worst-case scenario), that would mean that Clinton would've raised $34.2M for the month, while Obama would've raised $39M (so even though Obama has had a stalled fundraising, and Clinton's fundraising nearly doubled for the month, he still would've outraised her by $4.8M). This, by the way, does not take into account that Obama had 5x as much primary cash on hand as Clinton at the beginning of the month.
In North Carolina, Obama has every advantage that Clinton had in Pennsylvania, demographics, a semi-open primary, and the control of local machines. Unlike Obama though, Clinton can't hope to build up enough of an organization to overcome Obama's inherent advantages in the state. This becomes obvious when looking at the number of field offices each one has in the state (Obama has thirty-three offices there compared to only eleven offices for Clinton). Even though Clinton getting blown out of the water in North Carolina is probably fatal to her, the fact remains she can't hope to match his field organization in the state anymore, in fact, it's pretty obvious that Clinton understands that which is why she's going for broke in Indiana (Clinton has twenty-eight field offices up and running in Indiana, while Obama only has twenty-six offices). Whatever Obama's margin in North Carolina will be beside the point if Obama wins Indiana, so Clinton is being forced to put far more effort in Indiana while Obama badly out-organizes her in North Carolina. This might let people understand exactly why I seem so optimistic about North Carolina.