The Electoral College Maps (5/7/08)

The new week brought few changes in terms of new state head-to-head polls, but the data being utilized is more robust now with the addition of data from Pollster.com, which in some states, added up to three new polls. Once again, this week we will be using a weighted average of the polls (from both Real Clear Politics and Pollster.com), giving the more recent polls greater value than the polls from earlier in the primary season.

With a loss in North Carolina and a "worse than expected" showing in Indiana, the Clinton campaign is up against it mathematically in both the delegate count and the overall popular vote tally. The addition of the weighted average last week gave her an advantage (albeit slight) over Obama (relative to McCain) in the electoral college for the first time since FHQ began mapping the potential fall match ups at the end of March. Does that edge continue this week and can her campaign continue to make the electability argument in the post-NC/IN primary environment if it does? The morning after in the press seems to be leaning in an "Is it over?" direction. And as I said in the comments to yesterday's post, those arguments are fine when you're winning. When you come out worse for the wear, however, it just seems like sour grapes (and that includes the Florida and Michigan delegates issue.).

To the maps!
For Clinton, the big news is that Florida gives her a fraction of a point's lead over McCain in the Sunshine state. And while that doesn't put her over the top in terms of the electoral college, it does get her closer to McCain than she has been in these scenarios over the last month. The kicker is that she wins Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, but still loses in the electoral college by 16 electoral votes. Losing Washington and Oregon to McCain (vs. the Bush/Kerry outcome in those states in 2004) mean the difference between winning and losing the White House.
On the Obama side of the ledger, the big "get" this week is Michigan. The Great Lakes state swings into the Obama column, but only gets him to within 44 electoral votes of McCain. That's an improvement over the 80 vote deficit from a week ago, but certainly much worse than the virtual tie that had been demonstrated (in the weeks prior to adding the weighted poll average) between Obama and McCain. The striking thing is that Clinton does much better in the swing states. That's largely because of her positions in the big three (Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio). She carries a 24 electoral vote advantage over McCain out of 13 toss up states. Obama, on the other hand, leading the electoral vote count in states that aren't toss ups, lags way behind McCain in their 14 toss up states to the tune of 77 electoral votes.
The catch is that Clinton, for her part, is more competitive than Obama relative to McCain in only 14 states. However, when those 14 states include Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio, that group packs a pretty good punch. The argument could be made that while Obama is more competitive in more states, he is more competitive in red states he won't carry in November anyway. What Obama does bring to the table, as FHQ has shown with these maps, are states that aren't typically Democratic. And that while Clinton fares better in the big three, the McCain margins are slight (though they have increased for Clinton with the addition of the weighted poll averages). All that means is that a Democrat, whoever he or she may be, will be competitive in those states in the fall. Pennsylvania, for instance, has flip-flopped between McCain and Obama since the end of March.
As the campaign for the Democratic nomination moves forward after North Carolina and Indiana, the big question is how those results will affect Hillary Clinton. It is likely that she could see a dip in the polls that will come out in the next week. If those numbers don't go down, however, she may have weathered the storm and could once again focus on making the electability argument. That argument will be made in the interim anyway, but the key will be how receptive voters and the press are to hearing that message in the face of "defeats" in North Carolina and Indiana (Even though Indiana was seen as the last competitive state between Obama and Clinton, the poll numbers trended her way in the week before the contest and raised the expectations. Instead of being interpreted as a win in a competitive state, the Indiana results are being read as a defeat given her standing in the most recent polls in the state.). West Virginia and Kentucky are up next and both fit into the demographics that suit Clinton. But the delegate deficit is staring down on Clinton's face and neither state will offer her much relief.

***Please see the side bar for links to past electoral college comparisons.***

Recent Posts:
Identity Politics (Brazile v. Begala)

Primary Day, Part XVI (The IN & NC Edition)

The Rules and Bylaws Committee vs. The Credentials Committee

Identity Politics (Brazile v. Begala)

For many of the last several UGA campaign discussion group sessions, identity politics has been one of the key buzzwords when the topic has been the Democratic race. Strategists Paul Begala and Donna Brazile (see below) pretty much summed up the potential difficulties the Democrats face once a nominee is chosen and begins campaigning for the general election. Is it really "blacks and eggheads" vs. blue collar workers? As long as this race for the Democratic nomination continues it is. The big question: Will a continued Clinton/Obama battle drive these factions further into their respective corners, making it harder to bring the two back together in the fall?






Recent Posts:
Primary Day, Part XVI (The IN & NC Edition)

The Rules and Bylaws Committee vs. The Credentials Committee

Obama's Caucus Strategy

Primary Day, Part XVI (The IN & NC Edition)

That's right. This is the sixteenth primary or caucus day of 2008 presidential primary season. And it may be the last, best chance for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to make a statement in terms of delegates before this phase of the process concludes on June 3. Of the 492 delegates from the remaining contests, today's contests in Indiana and North Carolina account for nearly half (44%). A split (Indiana to Clinton, North Carolina to Obama) or a sweep of today's two contests by Obama really tightens the screws on Clinton in the delegate count. Once the committed superdelegates from final states are removed from that remaining total there are only 245 delegates available following Indiana and North Carolina. If the current delegate margin holds through today's primaries, for Clinton to make up the 135 delegate deficit she would then have to win almost 78% (190 of 245) of those delegates just to tie Obama in the delegate count. And with just six contests left, that's a steep climb, even with half or two-thirds of them being closed to independents and/or Republicans, respectively. That even accounts for the contests in friendly territory coming up in West Virginia and Kentucky.

Having said that, what will everyone be looking for tonight? There are plenty or scorecards already out there for tonight's returns and most of them cover the bases. Here, though, are a few links that may be of interest to the loyal readers of FHQ:

fivethirtyeight.com: This site popped up in the comments section of my first electoral college map post and is a great resource. On their frontpage today (linked above), they have predictions for North Carolina and Indiana. But the gadget that is getting the most buzz around the web is the North Carolina outcome predictor that allows you to manipulate the white/black vote percentages for both Clinton and Obama and the percentage of the Democratic electorate that is black to see how each affects the results in the state.

Social Science Statistics Blog: I posted a link to this blog in the comments to the R&B Committee post below, but the rest of the site is worth checking out as well. Both the regression analysis here and the analysis on fivethirtyeight have Obama winning by double digits in the Tar Heel state. SSS also shows a six point Clinton win in Indiana.

Finally, Arnie Fleischmann here at UGA, passed along to me this New York Times story this morning dealing with the concerns those running for down-ballot races in states that hold their state and local primaries concurrently with their presidential primaries. See, there is an advantage to having those two sets of primaries split and then frontloading the presidential primary. Sure, turnout would be increased in a competitive environment like 2008, but at what cost? Apparently, a lack of attention to those running down-ballot.

And on that rather apropos note, back to the dissertation.


Recent Posts:
The Rules and Bylaws Committee vs. The Credentials Committee

Obama's Caucus Strategy

7! 7 Votes in Guam!

The Rules and Bylaws Committee vs. The Credentials Committee

Let's assume for a moment that Clinton and Obama split Indiana and North Carolina, respectively, tomorrow. That outcome is the status quo outcome in the race for the Democratic nomination. Obama is "supposed" to win North Carolina, and the way polls are trending in Indiana, Clinton is "supposed" to win there. We've argued in campaign discussion group here at UGA that this race will continue until one candidate wins somewhere where they aren't "supposed" to win. If the above scenario plays out tomorrow (and remember few things have gone as expected during the 2008 cycle, though predicting the outcomes has become easier as certain demographic groups have line up behind each of the candidates), then that's two fewer contests that can decide the outcome; leaving only six contests (WV, KY, OR, PR, SD and MT) between Wednesday and the end of the primary phase of the election year 2008. And what that means is that the two most-often mentioned contests of this cycle will once again be thrust back into the spotlight.

What will the Democrats do with Florida and Michigan and their delegates? That is the question. If neither Clinton nor Obama wins one on their rival's turf, then the DNC's decision on Florida and Michigan's delegates becomes crucial to deciding the margins in both the delegate and popular vote counts. And that decision comes down to something of a battle between the Rules and Bylaws Committee and the Credentials Committee.

Who are the members of these committees and who/what do they support? As of now, the Rules and Bylaws Committee has jurisdiction over this issue. The folks on that committee appear to favor Clinton over Obama (in terms of superdelegates supporting each). And while that potentially bodes well for Clinton, the members of the committee have several other things to consider outside of their own personal preferences.

• First of all, as Thomas Edsall mentions in his Huffington Post piece, the Rules and Bylaws Committee members would have to deal with the perception that they have overturned the will of the people if they were to rule that Florida and Michigan should be counted.

• Secondly, they have to deal with the inevitable challenge of the decision by the Obama campaign to the Credentials Committee.
  

• Finally, and perhaps this should be first, the members of the R&B would have to confront the idea of going back on a penalty that they initiated.

Yes, it was the Rules and Bylaws Committee that levied the "lose all your delegates" penalty against both Florida and Michigan in the first place. Something tells me that the members of the committee may not be interested in completely emasculating the national party when it comes to the matter of the timing of future delegate selection events. If they reverse their own decision from last August, then they risk the DNC losing what little power it does have to deal with the frontloading of presidential primaries and caucuses. This consideration, and this one alone, is why I keep arguing that the DNC will go back to the original penalty (half the delegates from each state) and justify the move by saying that the complete stripping of delegates was too severe a penalty. This is the least talked about aspect of this decision but it may be the most important when it comes to the perceived strength of the DNC in relation to both the candidates and the state parties, but also in relation to its counterpart on the Republican side, the RNC.

[Of course, nothing regarding Florida or Michigan will be decided without intense consultation between the two candidates and the party. Obama won't budge if the plan means he loses the delegate or popular vote lead. And Clinton won't move from her position that they should be counted in some way. If there is a way to avoid this being a zero-sum game, neither the party nor the candidates have come up with it yet.]

What happens if we run the gauntlet on this decision, though? ...if the Rules and Bylaws Committee opts to count Florida and Michigan and as a result hands the nomination over to Clinton, for the time being? Well, if the R&B fails to act prior to the end of June, the jurisdiction on the matter goes over to the Credentials Committee anyway. But let's assume that R&B does, in fact, act to fully include Florida and Michigan. The decision on the nomination then goes from one committee to the next. And the Credentials Committee seems to lean in Obama's direction (based on the results of the 2008 primaries and caucuses so far and the Dean 25--those members appointed by the current DNC chair, Howard Dean.).

Does the appeal then reverse the reversal? Possibly. But that probably wouldn't be the final word. That's right, the floor fight we all envisioned last year as the least likely contingency plan for the nomination decision, could come to pass. And in that event, all the divisiveness, doomsday scenarios laid out by Howard Dean, Joe Andrew and some of the other party elites would come into play. All the while John McCain gets to practice saying his name with President in front of it.

It should be an interesting and well-covered meeting of the R&B on May 31.

...if Indiana and North Carolina go the way of the current polls.


Recent Posts:
Obama's Caucus Strategy

7! 7 Votes in Guam!

"We'll know it when we see it."

Obama's Caucus Strategy

The Boston Globe has a great retrospective look at the Obama campaign's strategy for the first phase of the primary season (Super Tuesday and before) and its focus on growing the grassroots in caucus states. Paul has often said during our discussion group meetings that luck is a part of this game. Often that luck boils down which campaign correctly forecasts how primary season will progress. And the advantages Obama planned for before and took away from Super Tuesday are the root of his lead over Clinton in terms of delegates and the percentage of the popular vote won.

Recent Posts:
7! 7 Votes in Guam!

"We'll know it when we see it."

Kansas' On-Again-Off-Again Presidential Primary

7! 7 Votes in Guam!

You have to love when the coincidence of politics overlaps with film. In this case, I'm referring to one of the few memorable lines from the largely forgettable Black Sheep. But seriously, seven votes! Florida, eat your heart out. I don't know that the contest in Guam, or the outcome for that matter, moves the needle in the Democratic nomination race heading into Tuesday's contests in North Carolina and Indiana, but it is remarkable how close the final vote tally between Clinton and Obama was (and I don't care that it was out of just more than 5000 votes). The delegates will be split evenly (all four of them), but Obama did pick up an additional superdelegate when one of his supporters was elected Guam's Democratic party vice chair.

Meanwhile, both candidates had an hour each this morning on the Sunday morning talk shows. Obama played the front-runner on the Meet the Press, acting like and assuming he is the Democratic nominee. Clinton, for her part on This Week, did the same. There has been a stink raised over her appearance on a show hosted by a former member of her husband's administration, George Stephanopoulos. Both she and Stephanopoulous have mentioned and made light of the relationship during the show, but I don't know that she has enjoyed an easier road than Obama got from Tim Russert. On the topic of Florida and Michigan and the rules regarding the DNC's treatment of their nominating contests, Clinton said that it wasn't in the rules that Obama should take his name off the ballot in Michigan. That's the first I've heard that argument. I doubt that one's going to fly with the remaining undecided superdelegates (or the voters in the remaining primary states). It doesn't hurt to try, though, I suppose.

On to North Carolina and Indiana!

Recent Posts:
"We'll know it when we see it."

Kansas' On-Again-Off-Again Presidential Primary

The Dakota Effect

"We'll know it when we see it."

Ever mindful of the potential magic numbers, goalposts and other measuring sticks, the Clinton campaign* is now attempting to "undefine" what victory is in the race for the Democratic nomination. Weeks ago, I wrote that 100 was the final delegate deficit for which Clinton was hoping in terms of framing an argument to the late deciding superdelegates. [Of course, if superdelegates are like primary voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas, they may break for Clinton in the end. The news on that front isn't all that rosy for Clinton though.] As the race has changed, though, so too have those markers. The decision-making calculus is relatively straightforward for the superdelegates now. It comes down to delegates, popular vote and states won. And if you want to extend it to general election prospects against McCain you could factor in national polls and state polls/electoral college projections. Obama is ahead in delegates, popular vote and states won, and the Jeremiah Wright flap has not really affected Obama in the national polls and only moderately in the state polls/electoral college (much of that is in states that were already very close and are still close but favoring McCain).

So what does, "We'll know it when we see it," mean? Ultimately it is going to mean that the marker of success in this race for Clinton is no longer on the field of play. That what they "see" is the writing on the wall.

Having said that though, there are two races coming up on Tuesday (and one tomorrow. Hey, eight delegates is eight delegates in this race.). How will the race be affected by the potential outcomes in North Carolina and Indiana?

Obama sweeps: Equals curtains for Clinton. Whether she gets pressure to drop out or not, the superdelegates will begin flocking to Obama at that point.

Obama in NC and Clinton in IN: The status quo result. The Clinton campaign would argue a small margin in North Carolina is a win for her. And one could argue that a win is a win for Obama in the face of the Wright situation. That's a slippery slope though, and is tantamount to saying that it affected the race (Not the message they want to send to the GOP). On the flip side, if Obama matches or surpasses the "expected" barrier (We've called it ten points in the UGA discussion group and I'll adopt it here.), he can make the argument, that despite Wright, he still did well. In Indiana, a win is a win for either candidate. A NC win for Obama and a Clinton win in IN will keep the contest going and push the nomination decision back to after June 3.

Clinton in NC and Obama in IN: This one hasn't really been talked about anywhere and probably is the least likely outcome (even less so than a Clinton sweep). If it were to come to pass though, it would likely send the press off trying to find new story lines. They'll manage. This gives Clinton a win on Obama turf, but would give him a win in a competitive state. I don't know. I'll yield to the comments section on this one. Thoughts?

Clinton sweeps: A Clinton sweep on Tuesday likely would cause a great many superdelegates (both those who are undecided and those who back Obama) to rethink their feelings on the race. With Clinton-friendly West Virginia and Kentucky up next, a sweep would make for a nice little streak of victories for Clinton since Texas-Ohio. Like the both the split decisions above, this outcome keeps the contest going through June 3, but also nudges this race ever closer to Carter-Kennedy territory. And that divisiveness is not where the DNC likely wants to be heading into the general election.

Four possibilities. Three keep the race going and one likely ends it. Which way will it go? If the Real Clear Politics averages today are any indication: Obama takes NC and Clinton wins IN. Those margins, though, would leave a lot of room for interpretation from both campaigns.

*Well, Clinton campaign strategist, Geoff Garin is at least.

Recent Posts:
Kansas' On-Again-Off-Again Presidential Primary

The Dakota Effect

Obama's Slide: Is Clinton Taking Advantage?

Kansas' On-Again-Off-Again Presidential Primary

The trials and tribulations of the Kansas state legislature continue in regard to the potential for a presidential primary in the state for 2012. If it wasn't bad enough that the legislature went through the same process during the 2007 legislative session to establish and frontload a presidential primary for 2008, it is now that they have repeated the same steps. The current bill (HB 2683--click link and type the bill number in the "Track Bill" space on the right) was only part of a larger piece of election law legislation that would have required a photo ID to vote (via Ballot Access News)as well. Despite that, the bill passed both houses of the legislature either on its own or as an amendment before heading to a conference committee. That legislation emerged from conference this week and was voted down in the House by a vote of 53-68 after having passed unanimously during the first go 'round. The bill now returns to conference, where the already small chances of a presidential primary for 2012 being established during this session grow slimmer.

After the massive frontloading in the lead up to this cycle, there just aren't that many states that aren't "early" anymore. The momentum of the frontloading trend will slow down for 2012 as a result.

...unless, of course, one or both of the parties shift the window for holding events to an earlier start date. That's the portion of the conventions I'll have my eye on this summer. How will those rules change or will they?

Recent Posts:
The Dakota Effect

Obama's Slide: Is Clinton Taking Advantage?

The Electoral College Maps (4/30/08)

The Dakota Effect

For those of you from the UGA campaign discussion group who didn't rush home and quickly flip through the pages of the current issue of PS after Bill Chittick brought up the Dakota effect, here is a post on The Monkey Cage on the subject from co-author, Lee Sigelman.

Recent Posts:
Obama's Slide: Is Clinton Taking Advantage?

The Electoral College Maps (4/30/08)

The State of the Race: Counting Delegates in the North Carolina Primary

Obama's Slide: Is Clinton Taking Advantage?

One of the biggest complaints about these maps that I've been producing for over a month now (see right side bar for the links) is that they pull in polling data from way back in February and give each of those polls (recent and long ago) equal weight. And that's a legitimate argument. Clinton supporters (and the detractors of my methodology) have chimed in in the comments sections of some of these posts to argue that Obama's good standing in the polls, post-Super Tuesday and pre-Jeremiah Wright, is propping up his averages, giving the appearance of competitiveness against McCain. My argument for including all the polls from Super Tuesday on has been that that was the point at which this became an even, two-person race for the Democratic nomination. The argument that we should expect some decay in a poll's value as it gets older, though, is still a valid one. I would counter that it is still necessary to include all the data from Super Tuesday forward, but to discount the early polls and weight the more recent ones.

Since there is a range in the number of polls per state (a low of one and a high of 15) there was some variation in the number of polls that were considered recent or dated. The following rules have been adopted to deal with these differences:

• If there has only been one poll conducted in a state, that is all the information on that state. Those poll numbers are left as they are, neither discounted nor weighted.
• If a state has had two or three polls since Super Tuesday the more recent one was given extra weight while the dated one (or two were) was discounted.
• Any state that had four polls over this period had the two most recent polls weighted while the earliest two polls were discounted.
• Finally, in all the states that had five or more polls the three most recent polls were given added significance while all the other polls were discounted to account for decay over time.

The big question: What effect does this have on the electoral college projection maps? If the recent negativity around Obama's campaign has any relevance, there should be a noticeable shift in his numbers against McCain in the hypothetical general election polls pitting the two against each other. In other words, adding in a decay function and giving more significance to the newer polls should be expected to hurt Obama. Relatedly though, is Clinton taking advantage of her opponent's slide? She has picked up some points on Obama both nationally and in the states yet to hold nominating contests, but is that translating to a possible battle against McCain? Is she able to make a better case that she would be more electable against McCain than would Obama?

To the maps!
In comparing the weighted Obama map to the unweighted one (see link under Recent Posts at the bottom), several things are clear. There is a lot less light blue and purple and much more brown. Many of the states that were leaning toward Obama or were toss ups favoring him moved into the McCain column. Whereas last week's maps showed an even split in the number of toss up states between Obama and McCain, this map has 11 of the 15 total toss ups favoring McCain. As a result, the race between the two in the electoral college has gone from a virtual tie to an 80 electoral vote advantage for McCain (309 to 229) with 174 toss up electoral votes. Among the states where the candidates were either strongly ahead or held a solid lead, Obama led 192 electoral votes to 172. McCain, then, took 137 or those 174 toss up electoral votes.
And Clinton? Her map and the resulting electoral college projections are nearly identical to the unweighted map. There are changes in the map on the margins, but the electoral vote tally is exactly the same (304 to 234 for McCain). That indicates that she has managed to maintain a certain standing against McCain, but that Obama's recent troubles have not changed the perceptions of those polled in regard to her standing against the Arizona senator.
And what of the difference each candidate makes in the various states? Here too, the maps are largely similar. The states shaded on each candidate's map are the same with the weighted data as they were before the transformations to the data were made. The difference is the magnitude of the differences. The Obama map is much lighter now. There are many more yellows and greens now than purples and blues. When the more recent polls are given greater value, the impact Obama had by being the head of the ticket against McCain is erode in relation to Clinton. In other words, the McCain margins between the two are narrower in many of the states. Obama's slide then has pulled him back down to earth; to the point that there really isn't a "dime's worth of difference" between Clinton and himself.
So, now I have appeased the Clinton supporters on their methodological concerns, but probably have both camps agitated with me over how the maps now look. I have argued before that the cloudiness over who the Democratic nominee will be has suppressed some of the support the party's nominee should get given the state of the typical general election indicators (presidential approval and economy). In that regard then, this is something of a worst-case scenario for the Democrats. It does underscore how the divisiveness of the post-Texas/Ohio race has hurt them and makes that much more understandable the calls from the party's elite to decide this thing earlier rather than later.

Related: Obama's Slide Revisited


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Maps (4/30/08)
***Please see links to past maps in the right side bar***

The State of the Race: Counting Delegates in the North Carolina Primary

The State of the Race: Counting Delegates in the Indiana Primary