While we wait for returns in Mississippi and Michigan, it’s worth taking a peek at how 2016’s Democratic primary results compare so far to 2008. For electoral analysts, we’re lucky this year in that one of the two candidates is the same as in 2008, and that in both years the race was essentially a two-person contest (after Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, at least).
The graph above shows where Hillary Clinton is doing better this year (bubbles above the diagonal line) or worse (below). The area of each circle is proportional to the number of 2016 delegates.
By far the worst—but most predictable—tumble for Clinton came in Vermont. What was a 20-point blowout in 2008 turned into a complete route when up against the home state favorite, Bernie Sanders. Clinton has also underperformed in the other New England states that have voted so far, shown in green. Note, though, that New Hampshire was a competitive three-way race in 2008, which makes direct comparisons trickier.
Where Clinton has overperformed dramatically compared to 2008 is in the South, depicted in blue. Exit polls show that these results are a combination of her phenomenal strength with minorities—she’s won between 83 to 91 percent of black voters, and 71 precent of the Latino vote in Texas—and her ability to win majorities of white voters. That’s resulted in even bigger margins for Clinton in Southern primaries than President Obama earned in 2008.
What about the caucus states that Sanders is winning by huge margins?
The graph below highlights these states.
As it turns out, Clinton has also outperformed her 2008 numbers in every caucus state (shown in light green) except Maine. However, we have little entrance polling data for deeper comparisons. The best we do have, from Nevada (where Edwards was only in the single digits), shows Sanders doing much better among young people than Obama, while Clinton has improved her numbers among older voters. This is not necessarily universal among caucus states, but it would explain an overall improvement for Clinton, as older voters are more likely to turn out.
There are two more states where Clinton has fared worse than she did in 2008: Arkansas and Oklahoma. In the case of Oklahoma, Sanders won by beating Clinton 56-42 among liberals and a whopping 54-22 among conservatives, while Clinton barely held on among moderates 48-47. This in a state where Clinton beat Obama 55-31 in 2008.
This raises two possibilities. One is that Sanders may have a populist appeal to white conservative Democrats in this region. The other is that we’re seeing more of an anti-Obama protest vote cast by registered Democrats who are members of the party in name only. These legacy “Demosaurs” always vote Republican in November, so given their hostility to Obama, they’d vote against Clinton what with her close ties to the president.
In the virtually uncontested 2012 Democratic presidential primary, for instance, Obama only received 58 percent in Arkansas, with the balance going to John Wolfe, running on a platform of splitting up big banks and Medicare for all. This lends credence to theory number one above.
On the other hand, Obama only received 57 percent that year in Oklahoma. But the infamous anti-abortion nutjob Randall Terry received 18 percent! (Yes, he actually did run in the Democratic primary—giving Vermin Supreme the chance to turn him gay.) This offers some support to theory number two. Complicating things further, however, independents were allowed to vote in the Democratic primary for the first time this year.
In either case, this year’s results would lead us to suspect Sanders will have a good showing in Kentucky and West Virginia, as those states also had many counties where Obama lost the primary in 2012.