The sense of inevitability that has grown up around the Obama campaign has reached, especially in the last week, an almost fever pitch. Anyone with two political ears has been beaten violently over the head with it: the thing is all over, it’s done, the fat lady has sung. The fat lady has sung so loudly and so definitively, in fact, that the echo of her honking has already reached into the deepest crevasses of every rare steak and puffy taco in the heart of Texas. Surely, it’s time to stack up all those signs that say “Solutions” and “Ready” and recycle them, just in case Al Gore is watching.
I will admit to having a muted version of this feeling on February 6th, since the progression of this month was clear after considering the psychological impact of so many successive victories at this late stage of the campaign, when everyone observing it would be drooling like drunken insects for some definite sign that someone was winning.
But still, even after the month has actually happened, and the trumpets of victory have begun sounding, the numbers and the analysis say it might be too early to start throwing buckets of lyme and holy water over the grave of the Clinton Machine™.
For the moment, I would like to consider Texas (in the interests of brevity, I will save Ohio for another time). There are, I would argue, two main reasons to consider her viable in the state.
1.) Obama’s recent victories provide a false sense of security.
February 2008 has become a sterling testament to the idea that in a close political race, the candidate with the best ground operation almost always wins. This has been starkly proven not only by the caucus states – where’s Obama’s perfect storm of operation and rabid supporters would have likely overwhelmed Clinton even in a normal race – but by the month of February, where Clinton’s string of head-slapping defeats have been less the result of declining support than of a startling lack of organization and money (the details of which need not be repeated here, since they have been so expertly covered both here and here).
Obama, to be sure, was favored to win all these contests, with the possible exception of Wisconsin (I’ll get to that in a minute). For emphasis, let us consider them all briefly, in no particular order.
*Washington – liberal northwestern state. Rich, well-educated population.
*Nebraska – caucus.
*Louisiana – heavy black population.
*Virginia – sizeable black population combined with affluent D.C. suburbs outnumber the more conservative western portion of the state.
*Maryland – a state with only two apparent Democratic Party demographics, rich whites and blacks.
*D.C. – the heaviest concentration of black voters of any place in America.
*Maine – a caucus, albeit a closed one, which help tamper down his victory to 19%, down from an average (even if you include Iowa and his loss in Nevada) of 33%.
*Hawaii – Obama's home state, and a caucus to boot.
*Virgin Islands – another caucus.
Obama won these contests by an average of more than 30%. But why? His national polling averages, at the time, were still behind Clinton’s, and while the demographics of these states obviously favored him, that does not account for the staggering fact that the smallest of these victories (19%) was still larger than Clinton’s victory in her home state of New York (17%).
The answer to this is actually somewhat obvious: thanks to a bit of forward thinking, and a surprising and commanding January fundraising lead ($30 million to some $13.5 million), he was prepared and financially able to compete in these contests, and she was not. After Super Tuesday, Clinton was fairly well broke, and common sense dictated she not start wasting money on lost causes. This allowed Obama a chance to run up the score (in both delegates and margin of victory), giving his campaign a (false) sense of momentum and allowing callow pundits to stare deeply into exit polling data and announce that Clinton’s lead was shrinking among her core constituencies, when what was in fact happening was that he had an organization and a get-out-the-vote effort where she did not.
Keep in mind that I view this as all completely valid on his part, but I simply do not hold a lot of faith in exit polling data where the race is almost completely one sided, as you are bound to see distortions of a candidate’s true appeal among a demographic when the minority portion of that demographic is better mobilized than the majority portion. This is why Obama has generally outperformed his pre-polling numbers in these states (adding to the shock of his margins of victory), since even people who describe themselves as "likely" voters are less likely to vote without the presence of a get-out-the-vote operation.
Which brings us to Wisconsin. There must have been some dark meetings in the Clinton camp figuring out what to do with Wisconsin. The visceral blood beating of the Potomac primaries had just ended in the shadow of campaign strife and money woes, and the Clinton people found themselves faced with two essentially unattractive options.
- Campaign in Wisconsin: face the likelihood of getting beat, in a state with big colleges, a progressive history and a close proximity to Illinois, and foul up the February Strategy of trying to minimize (i.e. ignoring) expected losses. Spend money you can’t afford to waste in an effort to merely keep it close in the hope that you can claim, in that manner unique to politics, that an unexpectedly close defeat is actually a victory.
- Ignore Wisconsin: focus resources on Texas and Ohio, since no matter what happens in Wisconsin, losing either one of them will be considered a shotgun blast to the face of the candidacy. On the downside, this allows Obama to add to his string of massive victories going into your firewall states, and gives him the chance to grab a primary election in a state that also has a large collection of blue-collar workers.
Faced with this (admittedly awful) decision, the Clinton campaign did what has become their fatal trademark: they tried to have it both ways, and got neither.
First it seemed Clinton would almost entirely ignore Wisconsin, other than a silly attack ad about Obama ducking debates (after 18 to that point). Instead she sent Bill and initially seemed content to campaign in Texas. Then, as soon as she arrived in Wisconsin, her campaigned announced they would be leaving a day earlier than scheduled, and then promptly changed their minds.
But it was too little, too late. Facing a better financed, better organized campaign, one that’d had no indecision about whether to campaign in Wisconsin, she was once again beaten soundly, and this time in what the Obama team could call a “no excuses” primary.
I go through all of that history to prove what I feel is an essential factor in evaluating the races in Texas and Ohio: what has happened since February 5th is not representative of what to expect on March 4th. Clinton had no resources to pour into losing contests, or even to steal one she might be inclined to challenge.
Which leads me to my next point:
2.) Texas and Ohio will be different.
As I said earlier, the purposes of this blog I will focus on Texas, since I view it as the more competitive of the two races (once again, an analysis of Ohio, hopefully omitting all of the above recapping, is upcoming).
Now, after all that time the Clinton campaign spent loudly ignoring (and, in fact, insulting) every state other than Texas, you would naturally expect them be both well-organized and well-funded there, and by and large the reports are that they are at least better organized and funded in Texas than they have been in previous races (most reports, however, give Obama a lead in this regard). There was, of course, the embarrassing disclosure that many of the higher ups in the campaign (including, apparently, the candidate herself), didn't understand the rules in Texas, but my read on that is that the Clinton campaign has spent much of February, not just preparing for March 4th (perhaps, not even mainly doing that), but reorganizing and regenerating under new leadership. It is not hard to imagine that they hadn't even previously (i.e., before Super Tuesday) bothered to investigate the rules of Texas, since her strategy, as we have seen, was predicated on her landing a knockout blow on Super Tuesday and not having to bother with anything else.
However, there are positive signs for their efforts there. They have been opening up offices, and their most precious resource, the candidate herself, has been in the state longer, and they have old and solid ties to the Latino leadership. The Clinton campaign has also been gaining on Obama's prodigious lead in fundraising, especially after the risky gamble Clinton made to lend her campaign $5 million (risky since it played up a sense that her campaign was in trouble in order to drum up funds).
All this is by way of saying that, like any caged animal, the Clinton Machine™ will be fighting harder than ever now that their backs are to a steep and deadly cliff. I would expect them to spend everything dime they have (to cut funds, for example, I saw on the news the other day that the Clinton campaign recently cut back from two planes to one), and to pull out all the stops. Expect the predictably terrifying result of a desperate struggle in what could be it's last gasps.
So, with all that tactical stuff behind us, what do the actual demographics of Texas tell us about what we should we expect to happen there? Well, when I began my analysis of Texas, I was fortunate to find a state with similar demographics that had already voted: California. To show what I mean, consider these numbers (according to census.gov and CNN exit polling).
Texas:
Latinos: 35.7%
Black: 11.9%
White not Latino: 48.3%
Asian: 3.4%
California:
Latinos: 35.9%
Percentage of Electorate: 30%
Margin: 67-32 Clinton
Black: 6.7%
Percentage of Electorate: 7%
Margin: 78-18 Obama
White not Latino: 43.1%
Percentage of Electorate: 52%
Margin: 46-45 Clinton
Asian: 12.4%
Percentage of Electorate: 8%
Margin: 71-25 Clinton
A few things obviously stick out here. One is the amazingly similar numbers of Latinos, who came out in California by 2 to 1 for Clinton. Another is the startling landslide victory for Clinton among Asians (a demographic almost entirely absent in Texas), and that the black population of California (Obama's most dependable supporters) is a relatively paltry 7% (compared to nearly 13% nationwide, an average closely reflected in Texas).
So the first thing I decided to do was to fit California's numbers to the relative demographics of Texas. This involved using the percentages of the vote reflected in the exit polling and applying them to the actual vote totals to effectively remove the Asian population and double the black population of California. Now, obviously this is a somewhat crude exercise, since it implies that demographics remain constant across state lines (i.e. a white person in California and a white person in Texas are equally as likely to vote for one candidate as another) and relies on unreliable exit polling from a state that had heavy early voting and a relatively sparse campaign (since it coincided with more than 20 others).
But, all that said, it provides an interesting place to start, and here's what I found:
Clinton: 51%
Obama: 48.5%
These numbers -- especially the margin -- should be somewhat familiar (note the change in result: Clinton's win of 10% in California shrinks to less than 3%), but there are hidden differences in the demographics that betray the numbers, and are especially instructive when comparing the two states.
On a whim, I also decided to apply these numbers to the newest (generally reliable) SurveyUSA poll, which predicts the turnout of the various ethnic groups this way:
White: 47%
Black: 21%
Latino: 28%
Other: 4%
These percentages seem pretty sound to me. Although the delegate allocation will be done based on the last gubernatorial race in Texas (where the Black and Latino vote split, 20% to 20%), there is a lot on the line for these two groups, and you would expect the turnout to reflect that. So, applying those predictions to the California numbers (substituting the California Asian margins for “Other” as a probably insufficient fudge factor, since her margin among Whites in Texas is almost surely to be more than a draw – 56-39 for Clinton thus far according to SurveyUSA), we come up with this:
Obama: 53%
Clinton: 47%
The margin here isn’t too off of SurveryUSA’s actual poll, which is thus far a 4% affair for Obama, but it bears noting that I do not mean these as actual predictions of what is likely to happen in Texas, but more as an exercise for thinking about Texas based on it’s relative demographics.
There are, of course, other important factors at play in Texas that need to be mentioned, and I’ll go through a few of them.
*A less politically motivated Latino population. The Latinos in Texas are distinctly different from those in California. They trend younger, on average, and they also vote in somewhat smaller numbers (SurveyUSA predicts 28% when California's total was 30%), a fact likely due not only to their age but also surely to the relatively disperse nature of their numbers (population density map of Texas). Dense populations tend, on average, to breed stronger political organizations (like the United Farm Workers in California, which endorsed Clinton), so while the Latinos in California are a famous political powerhouse, especially in Los Angeles, the Latinos in Texas, as I mentioned earlier, generally represent only 20% of the electorate in a generally election, 16% less than their percentage of the population, while blacks in Texas (concentrated in Houston and Dallas), also represent 20% of the electorate, 8% more than their percentage of the population.
*Delegate allocation. While Texas' confusing rules -- the so-called "prima-caucus," and delegate allocation based on turnout in previous elections -- have been widely reported (except, apparently, to the Clinton campaign), the actual delegates awarded in Texas have become almost beside the point. In their own words, Texas has become do-or-die for the Clintons, and despite the fact that the race is actually run for delegates, results like what happened in Nevada -- where Obama lost the popular vote by 6% but won the delegate count (a situation NBC's Chuck Todd said was possible on the news the other night) -- will undoubtedly be reported as a (add your own synonym for "stunning" and/or "needed") victory. It will also serve to stem the tide of superdelegate migration and Obama-fawning by the punditry, and will also serve, almost surely, to extend this race into what will seem like the next century.
*Geography. I won't attempt to match MattTX’s stunning and meticulous district-by-district analysis, but it bears noting that like any state, Texas is actually made up, demographically, of a few smaller states. For the purposes of argument (and geographic simplicity), let's split and analyze them this way:
West Texas: home to Midland (and as such, the George W. Bush Ranch and Spa Resort), this is a relatively unpopulated area (some 10% of the electorate) bordering the relatively progressive state of New Mexico. Home mostly to whites and Latinos, it figures to be good Clinton territory, even though Obama won the northern district of New Mexico that borders it in the caucus there (given that it was a caucus, and home to the suburbs of blank, that is not likely to be a strong predictor).
North Texas: home to Dallas, which figures to be strong Obama territory, but also bordering Oklahoma, the site of his most devastating defeat. Therefore, expect a typically strong difference between the rural vote (for Clinton) and the city vote (for Obama).
South Texas: clearly, Clinton's strongest territory, and she knows it. Her campaign has taken her to El Paso (77% Latino) to San Antonio (59% Latino) and Laredo (94% Latino) and back again. If you throw Austin into this area (it rides geographically central in the state), her hold somewhat weakens, since (as the home of the University of Texas and a vibrant music scene) it is a notably liberal town for Texas.
East Texas: bordering both Louisiana (big Obama victory) and Arkansas (huge Clinton win), this is (especially if you include Houston) the most populous part of Texas, and the most confusing. Houston itself figures to be good, but not great, Obama territory, since, for such a huge city the population of Latinos is very high there (37%). Outside of that, it is mostly the site of moderately sized cities, from Tyler (pop. 88,000 – 27% Black, 48% Latino) to Beaumont (pop. 112,000 – 46% black, 8% Latino). A reason to go through these geographic splits is that weather often plays a factor in these things. Consider Wisconsin, where a large blizzard hit the top of the state where Clinton's base of support was. So if we see bad weather in South Texas, Obama's lead should increase, but if a torrential downpour stops over one or both of the big cities, Clinton should do better.
*Independents and Republicans. The rise of John McCain as the definitive Republican nominee has been one of the worst of many bad things to happen to Clinton in February. With McCain's nomination all but secured, Republicans and Independents without a reason to vote in the Republican primary who were disposed to vote against Clinton and/or for Obama have had the opportunity to make their feelings known, and the effect of their support has been definitive. For instance, my analysis of the available exit polls from Super Tuesday (when the race for the Republican nomination was still up in the air) showed Obama beating Clinton among Independents by an average of 13% (numbers for Republicans were generally not sufficient enough to be included in the polls – telling enough by itself). The results on Super Tuesday essentially clinched the nomination for McCain, and after that, Obama’s margin among Independents has swollen to more than 30%, and he has won Republicans voting in those contests by 43%.
A prediction.
Despite the stark differences between the situation in Texas and the results we've seen play out through the rest of February, my feeling is still that Obama will win Texas (my objectivity fails me somewhat in this regard, since I support Obama and am wary to tempt fate). My confidence in his victory, however, comes from a belief -- decidedly speculative -- that although I know February has essentially been a series of uncontested races, not a series of serious, head-to-head blowouts, the people of Texas do not. Most people just see two numbers on a screen and the perception is that Person A is inspiring the troops and building momentum while Person B is a rabid freak in the throws of a drug induced meltdown (or something like that). And while this perception might not be factually accurate, it is important to remember that politics, as the sage said, is perception. As soon as your campaign starts smelling like a bag of rotten mangoes, no amount of scrubbing (or facts) is going to make it go away (just ask Ed Muskie, or at least someone who knew him when he was still alive).
So, in an even race, on a clean slate, my betting instinct would be with Hillary. But of course that's not the way things are, and if sports teaches us anything, it's that people will almost always flock to a winner when the weather is fair (observe Obama's new lead in the RCP average).
My overall sense is that Barack Obama is likely to be in for friendly skies, but by a relatively slim margin. His organization might be better, but he has demographic disadvantages. If he wins, I would place his victory at about 5%, and I have to say that it would not surprise me if he lost.
End thought: Given the stakes for the Clinton Machine™, I've been surprised so far at the relative lack of Alamo references. If she loses, however, expect practically no end to them.