In 2008, John McCain carried Mississippi with 56% of the vote to Obama’s 43%. This was a significant improvement over 2004, when Kerry was beaten 59%-40%. You can examine where Obama did better or worse than Kerry by comparing the 2004 and 2008 exit polls. One obvious area is among women. In 2004, there was no gender gap in Mississippi. Both women and men gave Bush 59% of the vote. In 2008, McCain won the support of 62% of men but only 53% of women. In 2004, Kerry won 14% of the white vote. In 2008, Obama only carried 11% of the white vote. Obviously, black turnout was much higher in 2008. Kerry also did better with the 18-29 voter, carrying 63% compared to Obama’s 56%..
Now, one thing that kind of leaps off the page is that it is remarkable for a candidate to win only 11% of the white vote but to still carry 43% of the electorate. There are a lot of black folks in Mississippi. The white folks didn’t much like Obama, but then they didn’t much like John Kerry, either. It appears that Obama outperformed Kerry mainly by appealing better to women and by inspiring an historic turnout from the black community. And, while he underperformed with the youth vote, he still did quite well. Those kids are older now, and many of them are in the crucial 30-39 age category this time around.
One last thing to consider is that John McCain received 94% of the white born again/evangelical vote, which constituted 46% of the electorate. If there is even a single point of erosion in that number because, say, Mitt Romney is a Mormon, that’s a lot of votes.
Now, these numbers show that Mississippi is probably the most racially polarized state in the country. White folks vote Republican and black folks vote Democratic, and there just isn’t much cross-over at all. That makes it very difficult for a Democrat to overcome the white-majority demographics of the state. Yet, younger whites cross-over more than older whites. In 2008, white women crossed over more than white men. And white evangelical voters, who are a strong plurality of the electorate, are the most reliable Republicans.
In order to win in Mississippi, the president must sustain high turnout among blacks, do better in the under-40 vote, and improve on his progress with white women. If there is any erosion in the Republicans’ support among white evangelicals, it will have a bigger impact in Mississippi than anywhere else in the country. Can he do that?
It’s a tall order, but both Santorum and Romney offer a path. Romney’s most obvious vulnerability is his faith. Can a Mormon win 94% of the white evangelical vote in Mississippi? I kind of doubt it. At a minimum, I would expect less enthusiasm and lower turnout. It’s also worth noting how badly John Kerry did in the state. Branded as a flip-flopper, the moderate Massachusetts senator simply couldn’t connect with the white voters of the state. It’s hard to exaggerate how much better John McCain’s biography and style fit Mississippi than Mitt Romney’s are likely to do.
Rick Santorum’s weakness is among young voters who support gay rights and among women who don’t want politicians telling them that they can’t have their health care cover prenatal screening or birth control. If you make a frontal assault on white women’s health care plans, you’re going to see an erosion in your support, even among white evangelical voters in Mississippi.
I chose to look at Mississippi because it is iconic as a conservative state with racially polarized politics. It should be one of the most unlikely places in the country for a black, liberal president to win an election. This is, again, a state where Obama only won 11% of the white vote in 2008.
Obama won’t dedicate many, if any, resources to winning the state because he doesn’t need its Electoral Votes. Of course, the reverse is probably true, too. The Republicans will not be investing in Mississippi because if it is not safe, they have no hope of winning the general election. Yet, it is not crazy to speculate that Obama might have a chance in Mississippi this time around. The main reason is the severe weakness of his likely opponents. The Republicans cannot afford any significant erosion of their advantage with white evangelicals or women, and the younger voters are voting Democratic while the older, most conservative, voters are dying off.
Maybe some mathematicians can look at the 2008 exit polls and election results and figure out what Obama needs to do to hit 50%.
Wow Booman, Didn’t you learn anything from the failures of Mark Penn? Obama will only win reelection by running a national campaign, not by micro targeting the electorate.
That’s a false choice. It is certainly possible to 1) design that national campaign in a manner that keeps in mind concerns other than the median voters, and 2) engage in targeted outreach towards specific groups in addition to running a national campaign.
you are missing the point.
Set aside any campaign effort whatsoever.
If Obama did nothing, Santorum would alienate younger voters and women, and Romney would concern the evangelical community. If Obama did nothing, Romney and Santorum would have less appeal to white voters in Mississippi than John McCain. Without Obama lifting a finger, the electorate will skew more towards people who never experienced Jim Crow and who have progressive views on human sexuality and the environment.
I’m not constructing a micro-targeting strategy. I’m talking about the reasons to believe that Obama will do better in Mississippi this time around than he did last time.
Mississippi, like Alabama and Georgia, has a voter photo ID law. In Mississippi, it was passed last November. Who is it likely to impact the most? Conventional wisdom is minorities, but it also likely affects seniors as well.
Okay.
Roughly 1,200,000 votes were cast in 2008.
About 64% of those votes were cast by white people: (768,000).
About 88% of those votes were cast for 675,840 McCain.
About 11% for Obama (84,480).
So, McCain picked up 590,000 votes among whites.
He won the state by 120,000 votes. If Obama had won Kerry’s level of support among whites he would have banked an extra 46,000 votes, getting more than a third of the way to victory. By my estimate, at 19% of the white vote, Obama would net the needed 120,000 net votes.
That’s a very tall order, but it’s not absolutely out of the realm of possibility.
By those numbers, 432,000 votes were cast by non-whites. Assuming those were all Obama votes (which likely is a bit of a stretch), what percentage of voter suppression would be required to offset those 120,000 votes if they swung to Obama. That would require suppression 28% of the non-white vote.
In a DOJ-monitored state, that would be very difficult to do.
It is within the realm of possibility.
But Mormons voting for Obama over el Pape Opus Dei Santorum is within the realm of possibility too.
Stuff like this will help.
I was on this Mississippi thing months ago in this here comments section, but I still for the life of me can’t remember who it was that first pointed this out as a real possibility in 2012. It won’t be as easy as winning Georgia and Missouri (which I think are almost locks at this point), but it’s easier than winning Oklahoma or Alabama or Utah.
I’m also confused as to why you called Obama a liberal but Kerry a moderate, but whatever. Success drives branding, I guess.
I’m also confused as to why you called Obama a liberal but Kerry a moderate, but whatever. Success drives branding, I guess.
Remember the early days of the ’08 campaign? Remember who at least sounded like an OWS candidate(Yes, it was Edwards)? And yet polls showed people thought he was the most conservative candidate. Given what we know about the DLC/Turd Way/New Democrats thing it was an interesting result. Especially considering that Edwards was once a part of that group. I guess the point I’m making is that it’s interesting how people really decide who they think is more conservative and such.
Edwards was a complete fraud, and anybody who continues to bring his name up in sympathy reveals their own prejudices.
Did you even read what I wrote you idiot? I was using him as an example of how people decided who was more conservative. Considering that we are barraged daily with people telling us the U.S. is a conservative country. And more garbage giving those dumb polls as reason why loads of Democrats are spineless dweebs. But it’s not surprising you didn’t address the point I was trying to make. Answer me this question. Do you remember the rhetoric Edwards used during his short-lived campaign? Do you remember what he said about the 1%?
Not really. It hardly matters. He was completely disingenuous and manufactured in all his dealings with the public throughout his entire career.
I would have thought by now people would be too humiliated to even reference the man in passing, but it’s nice to see how quickly I penetrated your sphere of self-righteousness and anti-Democratic propaganda with a single sentence, Calvin. Some people sure do love their southern white hucksters, right to the very end.
And for the record, just so we’re clear, Barack Obama is the most liberal president in this nation’s history in word and in deed. I just don’t think the domestic ideological separation between him and Kerry is that substantial. So I was wondering if Booman is trying to redeem the word “liberal” as a word of political triumph, and if twenty five years from now the story will be that Kerry lost in 2004 because he wasn’t a True Liberal like Barack Obama. Sort of a reverse Reagan maneuver.
It’s more that Kerry and Romney are/were both seen as centrist or moderate voices within the respective parties, unlike many of their political opponents (e.g., Santorum/Dean Gingrich/Kucinich).
Obama was seen as the liberal alternative to Clinton.
I’m not trying to make an objective determination, but to show that if Kerry didn’t sell well among Mississippi whites, then Romney is likely to have his own problems. They’re just not that different in how they come off and how they are perceived and portrayed.
I don’t think he was. Perhaps exclusively through the lens of identity politics.
But I always thought the key to Obama’s success was positioning himself as the conservative (small c) alternative to Hillary. He ran against polarization and partisanship and reducing away voters’ and citizens’ humanity into purely interest-driven calculations. He ran quite a bit on temperament and optimism in that primary.
Except for Iraq (which is a gigantic caveat, I’ll grant you), they were damn near ideological twins. Domestically, they pretty much would have employed the exact same roster of staffers and people. That wasn’t ultimately much of a policy-driven primary election.
I’m not trying to make an objective determination, but to show that if Kerry didn’t sell well among Mississippi whites, then Romney is likely to have his own problems.
Romney will only have problems in places like Mississippi if people(cough SuperPAC’s cough) remind Mississsipi vother that Mittens is a Mormon. Will Mississippi TV stations air ads from 3rd parties reminding people of that? As I said before, there are ways to do it. It’s just a matter of whether you want to get down in the sewer and fight Turdblossom there.
I should ad that TV isn’t the only way. There are other, more secretive ways of reminding Talibangelicals of their distaste for Romney’s religion. It reminds me of Jim Malone in The Untouchables. This:
Not really. It hardly matters. He was completely disingenuous and manufactured in all his dealings with the public throughout his entire career.
He was an asshole, I never denied that. But he was also right about the 1%. He said the 1% would never willingly give up control. That the 1% had to be fought tooth and nail. There was more, but I forget his exact words. For all his faults, and they are legion, I do find it funny, in a black humor sort of way, he was using the language of OWS before anyone knew what Zuccotti Park was.
It’s a tall order, but both Santorum and Romney offer a path. Romney’s most obvious vulnerability is his faith. Can a Mormon win 94% of the white evangelical vote in Mississippi? I kind of doubt it.
Boo:
If you really think the President can win 38 states, I know the certain way to do it. It would require our side to set up SuperPAC’s and other shady operations, but it is definitely do-able. And it would have the added benefit of testing who the Talibangelicals dislike more, Blah people or Mormons. Of course it’s all dependent on Mittens being the GOP nominee.
Blah people, I love it!
The side result of such a messed up GOP is that it’ll be a long while before making fun of Mittens or The Frothy One gets boring.
true indeed