The best proof of the wisdom of the 50-state strategy is the results of SurveyUSA’s 50-state polling of Obama/McCain and Clinton/McCain matchups. Clinton defeats McCain 276-262 and Obama defeats McCain 280-258. Kos pulled out some notable states.
Arkansas: Clinton +11, Obama -20
Colorado: C -6, O +9
Florida: C +9, O -2
Hawaii: C +4, O +30
Idaho: C -36, O -13
Iowa: C -5, O +9
Michigan: C even, O +1
Minnesota: C +4, O +7Missouri: C -4, O -6
Montana: C -20, O -8
Nebraska: C -27, O -3 (and splitting the EVs of the state)
Nevada: C -8, O +5
New Hampshire: C -8, O +2
New Jersey: C +5, O even
New Mexico: C even, O +7
North Carolina: C -8, O -2North Dakota: C -19, O +4
Ohio: C +10, O +10
Oklahoma: C -8, O -23
Oregon: C -5, O +8
Pennsylvania: C +1, O -5
South Carolina: C -6, O -3
South Dakota: C -12, O -4
Tennessee: C even, O -16
Texas: C -7, O -1Utah: C -38, O -11
Virginia: C -10, O even
Washington” C -2, O +14
West Virginia: C +5, O -18
Wisconsin: C +4, O +11
Wyoming: C -33, O -19
What stands out to me is how well Obama is doing (relative to Clinton) in the states where he campaigned and she essentially did not. Most obvious is North Dakota, where Obama is winning, and Nebraska, where is able to win one of the electoral votes (Maine and Nebraska allow their electoral votes to be split). But Obama is making many other states competitive, like: Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. He’s winning several states that Clinton is losing, like: Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire.
Clinton still pulls out a win, based mainly on her strength in Florida, but it is a more tenuous win because her margins are smaller. Obama is more competitive in more states, leading me to believe that he’d get a larger popular vote and he’d have much better and broader coattails. The poll was taken before Clinton’s victories on Tuesday, so she may actually be stronger than these numbers suggest. Yet, in order to win the nomination she’d have to piss off half the Democratic Party so badly that I don’t think she’d win half the states the survey shows her winning today.
Obama is weakest in border states like Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia (the latter two, where he has not yet campaigned), where race is an issue and there are not enough black voters to compensate. He shows real breakthrough potential, however, in the free states of the West. And it is a big concern that Clinton is so weak in Washington, Oregon, Iowa, and New Hampshire.
The New Hampshire issue is the story right there.
Her argument is that if she won the primary, she can win the same state in the general. But New Hampshire shows the “fifth dimensional thinking” you alluded to earlier. 😉
Would that be buyer’s remorse?
Is this Fifth Dimension thing about when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars?
ahhh the memories
roughly.
aaaargh now I won’t be able to stop humming that …
Hey Booman – I did my own analysis over at Daily Kos, and here’s what I found as a best-case scenario for Obama (giving him all states he is up in, or within 5% of McCain):
That’s 409 freakin’ electoral votes. Imagine that.
did you do the same for Clinton?
Here’s her best-case scenario:
how very red/blue of her. What’s that add up to in EV’s?
That’s 324 electoral votes – as a best-case. 85 behind what Obama could possibly accomplish.
Here’s what her worst-case looks like…it ain’t pretty. She still manages 203 electoral votes, but it looks a lot worse.
That’s 12 states + D.C.
well…the best thing I can say is that she seems strong in Florida…which I am not sure I buy.
All the NYers wintering in FL must have some kind of impact. That’s probably why Giuliani thought putting all his eggs there was a good idea.
I think Florida is going to be tough because the Republicans have a popular governor who will help turn out the vote for McCain. He already showed his power in the Republican primary.
I’m not saying a Dem can’t win it, but I wouldn’t put it in a ‘safe’ category. I certainly would want a Plan B in case we didn’t win it.
I think Democrats should campaign hard for Florida, but because Charlie Crist is their very popular governor, I wouldn’t want any Democrat to put it in their “must win” column. Too risky. They needs to win with a collection of small states instead of Florida, but Florida could possibly be icing on the cake.
oh my that’s a beautiful sight. A long shot to be sure. But still a beautiful sight.
By the way, I do think a Dem can win Missouri if the election is a smooth election (i.e. nobody’s pissed off anybody else’s voters). I understand SUSA isn’t showin that right now but things should tighten up in MO in the fall because we have a Governor’s race so there will be a big combined statewide Dem campaign.
and how do we win in Missouri? Huge black turnout. Case closed.
That black people are really only in in St. Louis and KC. Sure, there’s some in the rural areas, but not many. My aunt and uncle live in a rural area and everyone teases them that the two votes for Obama and a Democrat were from the two black people there. Everyone else either voted for Huckabee or McCain. I expect it would be the same in the southern part of the state.
No Democrat (not Obama, not Hillary) wins Missouri without Democratic turnout in KC metro, St. Louis metro and Boone County. In addition, you have to keep your losses in the rest of the state (outstate) to a minimun, which means you have to win a very few key counties out there and lose by as small a margin as you can get all over the rest of the state (which will go Republican).
The weaker you are in outstate the bigger the Democratic turnout you need in the cities. You don’t get big Democratic turnout in the cities, especially St. Louis, without the black vote. Period.
This applies to ALL races. So if the black vote in St. Louis or KC decides to stay home on election day it screws not only the Democratic presidential nominee but also Democrats in any statewide race. We have a huge Governor’s race this year.
WA state is going to get screwy. The TPM poll has the Gov race with Gov Christine Gregoire being challenged by her old nemesis Dino Rossi – their polling is virtually a dead heat & last round was a disaster by any measure. What I don’t get is that she has by all accounts done a great job, not to mention endorsing Obama so it’s beyond peculiar that Rossi is polling anywhere close to her.
We’ve got both cranky Patty & Maria endorsing Hillary so the infighting could get us in trouble.
Both Clinton and Obama look good from these numbers. I did some basic Monte-Carlo stuff, the results being that McCain wins about 13% of the time against Obama and about 26% of the time against Clinton. Of course, a lot can change in eight months.