This is the first part of a two diary series that will look at two pieces of conventional wisdom about the Democratic Primary that have been oft repeated:
- Barack Obama is mapchanger. He can compete and win in states Gore and Kerry could not. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, can only hope for a "50+1 victory." She's looking at the same old electoral map, but she's hoping to flip Ohio or Florida. Her inability to compete in Red States will drag down the ticket for lower slate candidates.
- Since the Iowa Caucuses, the primary campaign has been centered on race. The Clinton campaign has been using subtle and overt racial strategies to hurt Obama. As a result, Clinton has suffered a severe backlash among black voters. They're not only switching to Obama in the primary, but they also will not vote for Clinton if she's the nominee.
Follow me over the jump to examine the first claim and see if the CW represents reality...
Both of these claims are based on anecdotes: My friends/family will never vote for her. Pundit Joe said so. Blogger Jane said so.
But is there data that supports these claims? That's what I'll examine here.
WHO'S A MAPCHANGER?
For this part, I'll be looking at how the candidates are polling in Red States. I'm defining Red States as states that Bush won in both 2000 and 2004. I'm only using polls that were conducted after the Iowa Caucuses, most of which were also after the New Hampshire Primary.
I'll be using the Survey USA polls for a few reasons. First, they're damn good. Second, no one else polls as many states, and it's nice to have compare results using the same methodology. Third, they provide full demographic crosstabs for each of their surveys.
[I apologize in advance to John Edwards supporters (or anyone who wants to see how he compares). Survey USA, along with some other pollsters, stopped including Edwards in head to head matchups back in October. I'd like to see them poll everyone, but this diary is about hard data, and it's simply not available for Edwards. He was polling very well in Red States while Survey USA was including him, and I have no doubt he would be doing so now as well. To make up for it a bit, I'm including a PPP Poll for North Carolina in addition to the Survey USA polls.]
Survey USA has polled six Red States since Iowa, a nice sampling of the Midwest and South. Onto the data:
And the PPP poll:
There are two immediate takeaways from these charts.
- Clinton performs better than Obama against every opponent in every state--except for Ohio where he's better against Romney and the same against Giuliani. Edwards performs a bit better than Clinton in North Carolina.
- McCain is polling extremely well relative to other Republicans. He beats every opponent in each of these Red States. He's also polling ahead of both Clinton and Obama in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Shockingly, he's also five points up on Obama in Massachusetts.
The conventional wisdom says Obama will outperform Clinton in Red States because he polls better with Republicans and Independents. While that is true of Obama, that center-right attraction is more than outweighed by Clinton's ability to keep Democrats within the party. She's the most popular Democratic candidate among Democrats, and she commands a higher percentage of the Democratic vote in each of these states.
The difference in their abilities to keep Democrats within the party is most stark in the matchups with McCain:
While attracting Independents and Republicans is a positive quality in itself, allowing those voters to choose a nominee who is less popular among Democrats may not be the best idea.
The first complaint I'm going to hear is that these polls do not matter because the candidates have not campaigned in these states yet. Three of these states (Alabama, Missouri, and Kansas) will be voting in about 10 days, and another will be voting a week later (Virginia). Obama has virtually the same name recognition as Clinton among Democrats, which is where his deficit lies in these polls. John Edwards also polled much better than Obama in these types of polls when he was included
The second complaint is that polls between imaginary nominees this far out don't matter. These poll results are very unlikely to be the actual electoral results, true. But I think that has much more to do with the what happens over the next 8 months--these polls are an accurate representation of current opinion.
Many people wanted to dismiss national primary polls before the Iowa Caucuses, as things were sure to change. They did change, of course, but the starting point really does matter. The starting point is why Clinton is still leading in national polls.
Are these polls proof that Clinton would perform better than Obama in Red States? Of course not. They are strong evidence, however, that there's no real reason to think Obama would outperform Clinton in Red States.
Much hyperbole flies back and forth during primary season, and mantra gets repeated so often that it's assumed true by many. The idea that Hillary is hated by half the country, and that she'd never win any Red States is simply unsupported by the data. Yet that claim is repeated in the MSM and on Kos, daily. I hope this diary has at least made some people question its veracity.
The Polls:
Kentucky (1/4-1/6)
Ohio (1/4-1/6)
Missouri (1/11-1/13)
Virginia (1/16-1/17)
Kansas (1/16-1/17)
Alabama (1/16-1/17)
North Carolina (1/21) (PPP)