Clinton may win 8 of the final 9 contests

jackson_dem

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed Apr-09-08 08:37 PM
Original message

Clinton may win 8 of the final 9 contests

For folks who are "convinced" it is "over" Camp Obama sure is nervous. The reason is at heart they know it isn't over and Clinton has a great chance at closing strong. Let's look at the final states plus Puerto Rico.

4/22

Pennsylvania

This looks like it will be Ohio redux. Obama surges after flooding the airwaves, like Romney did in Iowa and New Hampshire and Obama himself did in Texas and Ohio, but at some point the effect of ads "maxes out". We seem to have reached that point. What happened in Ohio and Texas is after that point Obama actually lost ground in the final week. This is likely to happen in Pennsylvania. The underfunded Clinton, whose base is working class, cannot match Obama in advertising but she can budget her resources and come close to him in the final week or so. This is what happened in Ohio. Obama outspent her 3:1 but they were pretty much even in the final two weeks. Why is this important? Ask John Edwards. He didn't run ads until very late in Iowa. The reason is the vast majority of undecided voters make a decision in the final 2 weeks. They are not as influenced by an ad blitz one month out. Most people don't even pay attention until then. Pennsylvania has been discussed ad nauseum so there is no need to get in depth about it in this thread.

5/6

North Carolina

The only way Clinton can win NC is if she wins Pennsylvania big and has a good two weeks heading into the primary. Why is she so weak? Ask any Obamite. They like to acknowledge demographics and the role they play in voting--when it is convenient to Obama. About one third of the Democratic primary electorate in North Carolina will be black. In the last primary Obama got 90% black support. Basically, given this, the only way Clinton can win North Carolina is if she wins about 70% of the white vote, something she has done in only a handful of states: Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. In Tennessee she won 67% but Edwards got 6% but it is safe to say in a two-way race she would have gotten past the 70% mark in Tennessee as well. (In contrast Obama has gotten over 70% of the black vote in 41 of 42 states. The exception is New York where he won the black vote 61-37. Post-swiftboating he routinely gets over 80%.) The only thing that makes it semi-possible for Clinton is that of the four states where she won at such a rate they were all southern state, although Arkansas was an exception for obvious reasons. Trends also give her a sliver of hope. She won 75% in Mississippi and 63% in Ohio. A Clinton win in North Carolina would be an upset on par with her New Hampshire upset but don't bet on her winning. Obama should be able to get about 35% of the white vote and that will be enough.

Indiana

Clinton is the favorite in this state, despite Obama's regional advantage and the spillover from the Chicago media in one third of the state. Obama would have no shot in Indiana if it weren't for his regional advantage and the Chicago spillover. The demographics are great for Clinton and she dominated in the Ohio counties that border Indiana. 9 counties in Ohio border Indiana and Clinton won 8. The one Obama won? You guessed it: Cincinnati. If she somehow loses Indiana she is in big trouble but with momentum from Pennsylvania her losing Indiana is almost as unlikely as Obama losing North Carolina.

5/13

West Virginia

This is to Clinton what Mississippi was to Obama. After losing 3/4 Obama rebounded with a big win in Mississippi. Similarly, the msm vultures will be in the air after 5/6 if she loses North Carolina. West Virginia will end that. More importantly, it would, along with Pennsylvania and perhaps Indiana, help lead to a very dangerous narrative for Obama as it relates to his electability. Superdelegates are not naive. They are watching the returns for signs of electability. To put it simply, if Obama keeps getting less than 40% of the white vote the rest of the way that will greatly diminish his chances with superdelegates. Still, no one expects Obama to win West Virginia. The state is 95-96% white and predominantly working class. It is as bad a state for Obama as Mississippi was for Clinton. Right now Clinton has a 2:1 lead over Obama in West Virginia in the Rasmussen and a 37-22 lead in ARG. ARG is joke and so is that poll. 37-22 with 13% undecided. What about the remaining 28% ARG? Her lead may not be as large as Rasmussen shows but she should win this state comfortably.

Nebraska also holds a non-binding primary on this day. The significance of that is it will offer further evidence that caucuses are a sham. Obama won the Washington caucus 68-31 but the Washington primary only 50-47. Similarly, he won the same day Texas caucus 56-44 despite losing the Texas primary 51-47. Nebraska will offer further evidence that caucuses disenfranchise voters--and those voters happen to be Clinton's base: working folks, seniors, military folks, and immigrants. Clinton's backers will be sure to point to the discrepancy between primary results and caucus results in Nebraska, Washington, and Texas when making their case to superdelegates.

5/20

Kentucky

This is a good state for Clinton for many of the same reasons as West Virginia. Currently she leads 2:1, 58-29, in a SUSA poll. This goes to the previous issue. Obama is getting 23% white support in Kentucky. Obama's performance in this state is disappointing, though, since he is from Illinois. He has a regional advantage and is still getting clobbered there.

Oregon

This state has always been presumed to be an Obama state. This is in significant degree due to Obama winning Washington. However, as explained above, that was in a sham caucus. He won the primary only 50-47. Oregon is a primary and the only recent poll there has him up only 52-42. If Clinton enters Oregon with a head of steam from winning Pennsylvania, Indiana, and then winning West Virginia the previous week she could easily erase that lead and win Oregon. Oregon is Obama's known chance to win after North Carolina...

6/1

Puerto Rico

This is a wild card, not for the outcome, though. Clinton should win easily here. The question is how many people will vote? 1 million people voted for a non-voting delegate to Congress in Puerto Rico. It would not be a surprise if as many as 2 million show up to have a chance to pick a president. How big the turnout is will be crucial in determining whether Clinton can surpass Obama in the overall popular vote. Right now she trails by about 400,000 enfranchising Florida. There is no polling for PR. How stateside Puerto Ricans vote is not a great predictor of how those in PR will vote but it is the only thing we can look to for an idea of how this territory will vote. US Puerto Ricans are concentrated in two states: New York and New Jersey. New York is one of Clinton's home states so we can't read too much into the result there. In New Jersey most Latinos are Puerto Rican. Clinton won Latinos in New Jersey 68-30. If she can come anywhere near that it will be huge for her battle to win the popular vote.

6/3

South Dakota, Montana

There is no polling for either state right now. They are also assumed to be good Obama states. Like Oregon, this is to a large degree because Obama won big in Idaho, Wyoming, and North Dakota. However, like Washington these nearby states all had sham caucuses. South Dakota and Montana will have primaries. If Clinton heads into 6/3 having won Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and perhaps also Oregon she has an excellent chance of using that momentum to sweep to two wins in the final two states, just as momentum lifted Obama to a big win in Wisconsin, a state he probably otherwise would have lost or barely won.

Conclusion

She has a very good chance of winning five of the next seven (let's put SD and MT on the backburner right now since there is no data for them). Even if she loses Oregon that would be an impressive streak and would shatter Obama's "inevitable" image. If she can keep Obama below the 40% mark with white voters and cane him in Puerto Rico that would raise questions in the eyes of superdelegates with respect to Obama's inability to win white and Latino votes. The latter has been overlooked but that is a mistake. McSame would win a significant share of the Latino vote against Obama and for someone who would almost certainly do worse with whites than Kerry did it is hard to see how he wins if he can't somehow get 70% of the Latino vote to offset white defections, if we assume a rosy scenario under which Obama gets only 2-3% less white votes tha Kerry did (Kerry lost this group 41-58).

The calls for Clinton to withdraw are as absurd as demanding that Kansas quit the game because it was down 9 points in the fourth quarter. Many of Clinton's best states are yet to come. Why should she quit now before she can add some certain points to the scoreboard? This would be like Obama quitting after Super Tuesday with sham caucuses coming up in Kansas, Washington, a primary in Louisiana and then Virginia, Maryland, and DC all within a week.