Who’s gonna win? Follow the state tallies
People ask, “Who’s gonna win in November,” and then they talk about national polls or national issues or national debates. All those things are absorbing. But if you want to know who’s gonna win, there’s only one thing that really matters, and that’s the state-by-state electoral vote count.
That’s why the electoral-vote.com site is such an election-year essential. (It started up in 2004.) All you need to do is look at the map as it stands, roughly, now, and you can see what the election’s faultlines are.
The first thing you may notice is that the split between blue Democratic states and red Republican states follows the greatest divide in American history. It’s Civil War time all over again. East of the Mississippi, the old Dixie states go to McCain, and Obama takes Lincoln’s Union states — with the very-close Ohio (now leaning McCain-ward) as the only break from the pattern.
Couldn’t have anything to do with this being the first credible presidential run by an African American, could it? Nah…
West of the Mississippi, the pattern’s a little less even; Obama gets the coast, McCain gets much of the heartland, but there are Democratic inroads here — in recent elections New Mexico has often voted Democratic, but Colorado’s new to the blue roster.
Much can change between now and November, of course. But if you look at the count today, you see that a lot of conventional electoral wisdom just doesn’t hold this year: Obama could lose Ohio and Florida and still win the election handily. He can even win it, closely, if he also loses Indiana, which is currently in his column on electoral-vote but is very much up for grabs (it’s been a reliable Republican state in the recent past).
There’s just a lot of fluidity in a lot of these states. Ohio could still go to the Democrats. Obama has a shot in Montana, of all places. And even Virginia might be in play. Colorado’s plainly up in the air. The Republicans might have a chance in Nevada and New Hampshire. McCain trails by 5-7 points in all the upper Midwest states (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin), as well as in Pennsylvania and Michigan; a lot has to happen for these states to get more competitive, but it’s entirely possible.
This is the stuff Obama’s strategists are poring over right now. They did a superb job during primary season in managing a tough, long campaign across 50 states in sequence. Now they’ve got to do the same thing all at once.
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August 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am
See also:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com
and
http://election.princeton.edu/
(and http://election.princeton.edu/2008/08/04/on-a-flaw-in-fivethirtyeightcom/).
August 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
“Couldn’t have anything to do with this being the first credible presidential run by an African American, could it? Nah…”
[Thwap! That's the sound of the race card being played AGAIN!]
As much as the Obama’s rabid supporters in media would like the story to be: whites who work in non-technical occupations are inbred racists, the real fault line isn’t racial. It is cultural, economic, and political.
Go look at Virginia. The same state that sent a conservative black democrat to the governor’s mansion is rejected the Harvard lawyer who talks about the price of arugula in favor of the Yale lawyer who ostentatiously gulped down boilermakers.
The problem isn’t that the dems have nominated a black guy. The problem is that the dems have [again!] nominated a northerner who as perceived as a know it all elitist, out of touch with the experiences of the “common man.”
The last part may or may not reflect reality, but politics isn’t about reality. Thanks to the media/blogosphere internet echo chamber, the dems still don’t get it. They take any criticism of Obama and banish it with “oh, they’re just racists, ignore them.” The result is a race way tighter than it has any right to be.
August 17th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Apparently, Democrats, having taken the historic step of choosing the first ever African American nominee for U.S. president, are now enjoined from ever mentioning race in this election again.
Sorry, I’m not playing cards, I’m discussing an election, and of course race plays a part. I refuse to be steamrolled into pretending it doesn’t just because some portion of the populace feels that to discuss the issue is somehow out of bounds — or that the moment one makes reference to it one has resorted to blanket charges of racism.
As for Virginia: actually, Obama is the first Democrat in years to be making a significant challenge in that relatively conservative state, and the race there is a statistical tie right now.
On the “common man” front, neither candidate qualifies for that label. We’ll just have to see which candidate ends up making a better connection with people — the one who at least once worked as a community organizer or the one who’s got eight homes.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Scott, I like your writing, most of my friends are rabid Obamistas, and I can see the appeal, I’m an urban geek and smack in the Obama campaign’s demographic, but…
You are playing the race card.
You accuse Obama’s critics of being racists when the reality is they just disagree with his ideas. That’s playing the race card. You play it twice in your short response.
Wilder [a conservative pro-death penalty dem] winning the statehouse in Virgina shows that it isn’t race: it is politics.
This is the most insightful thing I have read on the race to date: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/215hpooz.asp?pg=1 Ignore the Standard’s editorializing and focus on Barone’s ideas.
In short: It is less about race and more about political mythologies: America is always right vs. America is usually wrong and in need of reform. Moral clarity is good vs. moral clarity is dangerous. Individualism [and guns yee haw!] is good vs. rampant individualism is dangerous. Here is the fault line, and about one half of America is on one side and the other half on the other.
Obama does well in university towns, he falls flat out in the countryside. “Those hicks are a bunch of racists” is tremendously satisfying to urban Obamistas [who wouldn't want to dismiss one's political opponents from the sphere of legitimate discourse?], but I just don’t think it reflects reality.
[I find it funny that the "if you aren't for Obama you are a racist" movement thinks *it* is at risk of being steamrolled. For fun, try voicing a criticism of Obama at your next San Francisco dinner party. I tried it in Madison, WI with disastrous results. I used "I just can't believe we are considering electing someone president who only has one year of national political experience." Ooh! The howling!]
I would actually suggest that race is the most important thing that O has going for him. It makes criticizing him absolutely beyond the pale. [Oh, and before you slap another race card down about that phrase, please look it up.]
Sure, he is charismatic, but the last time a charismatic, inexperienced, charming guy ran for the Dem nomination, his name was John Edwards and was branded a neophyte and a lightweight. People were so jazzed about a brown guy being president that all criticism was suspended.
While I have enjoyed being a “terrirst” every time I think the president does something stupid, I bet I will love being a racist every time I think the president does something stupid.