Obama in 2008? Race and the Electoral Map

Early indicators suggest 2008 should be a very good year for Democrats. By any measure, Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, should be president in 2009. Voters have a strong preference for change. They are extremely dissatisfied with America's present course. President Bush's approval numbers are at record lows.

The economy is experiencing a housing bubble burst and oil price increases leading to more general economic decline and insecurity. Most Americans are uncertain to downright angry about America's foreign policy situation. Add to this that Americans tend to support regime change after several years of one party rule. All of these indicators point to an Obama victory.

Not so fast. While Americans are ripe for a Democratic president, they are not so sure of Obama. For example, 51% of Americans said they wanted a Democrat elected president in 2008 with only 35% preferring a Republican according to a June 2008 national news poll. Yet trail heat polls that match Obama against McCain consistently show a much tighter race.

It could be that McCain is more appealing than today's average Republican. He has a long history of being a maverick or independent-minded Republican. He also has the benefit of not being a member of the unpopular Bush administration.

McCain's appeal might explain some of what's going on. But Obama's racial identity probably explains more.

Obama is the first racial minority to capture a major party nomination. He is half white and half black. This proved to be an issue with working class white Democrats in the Democratic primary. While he won the votes of liberal, educated whites and black Americans, working class whites were more resistant to his candidacy. Exit polls indicated that some Democrats voted for Hillary Clinton for explicitly racial reasons. There are likely to be many others who were interviewed and shared this sentiment but were unwilling to admit to it.

It was Obama's capacity to carry blacks and educated, liberal whites that brought him victory. Democrats from the past who appealed to educated, liberal whites, such as Gary Hart in 1984 and Paul Tsongas in 1992, did not win black voters and thus did not win their party's nomination. In this way, Obama is a very different sort of Democrat.

He transitions into the general election with a different core coalition from past Democratic nominees. While most working class, white Democrats will vote Democratic this year, some will not and for racial reasons. It's hard to know how many that will be but with a tightly divided electorate, Obama's campaign needs to consider how to make-up this vote loss. An obvious answer: increase turnout among blacks.

Two things conspire to make this turnout strategy unhelpful, a state-based electoral system and the current population distribution of black Americans in the American states.

Consider that, in a tight race, Obama has a good chance of carrying only one of the five states with the largest proportion of blacks (Maryland -- 28% black). He has a good chance of carrying only two of the top ten states in this category (Maryland and Delaware -- 19% black).

Even if blacks vote in record numbers in most of the other states in this category (Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee), Obama is unlikely to win a single electoral vote from them. Only Virginia may prove to be a swing state.

Why? These tend to be poor states. In our book, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State, Andrew Gelman and coauthors find that there are real and counterintuitive differences between how people vote in rich versus poor states. Income is a more important predictor of the vote in poor states than in rich states and the differences are most stark for richer voters. Additionally, income and values bias richer voters in the same direction in poor states (toward voting Republican) while they are countervailing influences for richer folks in rich states.

So in poor states, white, richer folks are highly motivated to vote Republican to satisfy both pocketbook and values concerns. This helps to keep these states reliably in the Republican column even with high concentrations of blacks.

Obama's campaign will have to look to young Americans, disaffected independents, other nonwhites and western voters (who see their values shared by Obama) to make-up for likely deficits among working class Democrats.

The role that race plays in this election will tell us a lot about America. Some of it will be hard to spot but some of it will be easy. We can expect some people to be very explicit about their prejudices in exit polls. Democratic voters who don't turn out or vote Republican and the mismatch between the polls and Obama's performance on Election Day will give us some sense of underlying racists sentiments that people don't admit to.

Joseph Bafumi is an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College and is a co-author of the forthcoming book, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State.

Comments

[Quotidien]

The GOP deserves a kick in the nuts this November. I'm putting on my steel-toe boots.

[BlackbirdHighway]

Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee

Do Democrats normally expect to win these states? No, so why would this election be any different?

One possible difference is that Barr might but Georgia in play.

[Egalitare]

North Carolina's demographics are not very different from Virginia's - the "Triangle" and and even larger number of Black voters. Of the listed states, NC will bear VERY close watching.

[foxbat]

What's not being said is that recent polls show Obama doing better among Whites than both Gore, who was down 12% to Bush, and Kerry, who was down 17% to Bush. Obama is down 9% to McCain. On sheer numbers, to be down only 9%, at this point, given Obama's race and youth, bodes well for Obama. Obama leads 20-1 in Black voters and roughly 2-1 in Latino voters.

Assuming that Whites are 80% of the electorate, then with just two candidates, McCain outpaces Obama roughly 43% to 37%. Toss in Blacks and Obama jumps to around 46% to McCain's roughly 44%. Toss in Latinos, and Obama's lead increases to slightly more than 50% with McCain in at roughly 46%. These numbers are conservative; using Black electorate at 10% and Latino electorate at 6%. The remaining 4% would be AsianAmericans, AmericanIndian, etc. In this scenario, Obama could concede the entire remaining 4% to McCain and still be slightly more than 50%. My guess is that he won't lose the who 4% and will probably split that vote with McCain. Making it 52-48, Obama ASSUMING no Bradley-effect.

Of course, as the article mentions, the devil is in the details of the electorate DISTRIBUTION in the states and as Gore found out, sometimes a national lead doesn't translate into the WhiteHouse. Fivethirtyeight.com has nice articles on both the Obama youth vote and the Bradley-effect.

[johnwinner]

The argument of this article is so confused, I gave up trying to follow it. Poor white people in rich states with few African Americans will vote against Obama on the basis of race and rich white people in poor states with large black populations will vote agains Obama for economic reasons. And the African American vote counts for - nothing? Does any of this make sense in 2008? How about this - Poor white people will vote for Obama for economic reasons because THEY UED TO BE THE MIDDLE CLASS before Bush got through with them, and African Americans in states with large African American populations wlll actually vote because they happen to be active parts of an electorate to which they are at last recognized as belonging, and thus completely offset the minority rich white people in those states (also known as "the South").
This article is just more Clintonista hoo-doo, 20 years out of date..

[ashenthorn]

Your analysis only addresses 2 out of the 3 contributing factors that explain why Obama is trailing the "hypothetic democrat vs. the hypothetical republican" - his race and name, and John McCain's perceived status as a "maverick". You leave out the 3rd and most important factor - the continuing stealth campaign being run against Obama by Hillary Clinton for President, a campaign which inexplicably continues to be active and coordinating attacks on Obama months after the candidate publicly dropped out of the race and endorsed Obama. Monday morning we were greeted with a coordinated attack: Howard Wolfson saying that the voters of Iowa really preferred Hillary if it wasn't for a meddling John Edwards, Mark Penn has a power point presentation highlighting Obama's electoral weaknesses, and Bob Kerry out there saying that voters are "unsure about Obama" (parroting a key republican talking point).

[MizLiz]

There's a huge, huge section of the country that is not being polled --- all the people who have gotten rid of their land lines and use their cellphone exclusively. Like all the younger people in my family. Their voice isn't being heard now, but just you wait.

[nycdave]

And yet -- if you look at the breakdowns and analysis provided by pollster.com or fivethirtyeight.com -- it doesn't matter.

The "black" states you point to would simply be gravy on top of what he needs to win. His ability to draw out a bigger turnout among black people and young people is a key difference in more marginal states, with smaller, but significant, AA populations -- Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia -- all states he is currently favored to win.

[lennix]

thats right every president all had on the job training so stop the b.s and some like clinton and reagan did great jobs and clinton said his self that nobody is ready for president but obama was smart as a whip but the msm and cable took this out of context this is a year for change and you can't stop change if all of these so call smart people know thier history that every thing changes when people are tried of lies and hurting in the pocket book also the people that say he can't when are not going to vote for him any way and with the msm cable and people like bafumi with the b.s keeping the flame of hate going it would be hard but it will get done the young will make a liar out of you all this time one problem about smart people they think they are smarter then any one else that is why we are in this mess today becuase you so call smart people

[truegreen]

Sadly, Joseph Bafumi analysis is correct. There are some white Americans who are not being honest to pollsters about Obama. But hopefully, the good will come out in some of these individuals and they will come around by election day.

[Higbyguy]

I am hopeful that the number of white Americans who cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man will be offset by the record-breaking turnout for black and young voters (many of the latter of whom are not turning up in the polls because exclusive cell-phone owners don't generally get canvassed). I am also hopeful that the Republicans' lackluster candidate will keep a lot of bored and disenchanted Conservatives at home. Obviously, anything can happen with this election but momentum and enthusiasm for Obama are good things to have working for you.

[jeg]

As I posted in another thread, I've encountered white Americans who aren't being totally honest... they don't want to admit publically to voting for Sen. Obama, but they will, given the choice between Sen. Obama and Sen. "bomb-bomb-bomb" McCain.

Hopefully the two groups will balance out.

[Egalitare]

The big fly in the ointment of this premise is that the Primary battle has given certain "majority" voters permission to openly state their racial bias in both polling and voting. That is the essense of, as we Virginians prefer, "the Wilder Effect": that the African-American candidate polls better among "majority" voters than actual turnout on election day. Team Wilder took it into account which is why he won that election in 1989. Bradley had no such advanced warning.

Many are bemoaning that Obama is "significantly underpolling the generic Democrat." I contend that this time around there will be much less of the "Wilder Effect" because most of the racial bias is ALREADY "baked in" these poll results.

[lovetheworld]

As much as you stack your analysis with some numbers, even your analysis doesn't tell the whole truth.

You fail to mention the 400,000 African-Americans (as of 2007) in Florida who were registered, but didn't vote in 2004. If they did vote (which would have likely been DEMOCRATIC) Kerry would have won Florida because he lost the states by over 300,000 votes. And you also fail to mention the 300,000 African-Americans (as of 2007) in Florida who can vote, but aren't registered.

You also failed to mention Georgia. As of 2007, there were some 600,000 to 700,000 African-AMericans who are eligible to vote but not registered. Just like in Florida, Obama's camapign has done a tremendous job reaching them. NC and MO are two Southern states in play too, and likely to go Obama's way.

And, I'm sure you know that the black vote is crucial for any Democrat winning PA, MI, and WI. Studies show that Kerry actually lost some of the religious black vote in OH to Bush, which was the deciding factor for the election.

And then you mentioned Obama's struggles during the primaries with working class whites. I'm sure,. being a distinguished professor and author, you were very aware of the recent survey that came out showing Obama ahead of whites making $27,000 a year. This was due primarily to the fact that Obama has a better health care plan that McCain.

Obama will be fine. But keep underestimating if you like.

[Egalitare]

The "Maverick" persona in this case is a double-edged sword. A significant number of Movement Conservatives are concerned that McCain will end up being an "Eisenhower Republican" , and that feeling will grow as McCain courts the center.

[Mikecoatl]

Barack Obama is actually polling slightly BETTER with whites than John Kerry did four years ago:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108040/Candidate-Support-Race.aspx

Kerry lost whites by 17%. Obama is only behind by 13%. There are other polls where Obama even breaks into the 40's among whites. Oh, and everyone needs to shut up about the 'Bradley effect':

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/persistent-myth-of-bradley-effect.html

The polls overall are likely still close because people aren't sold on Obama yet and are still hung up on the 'maverick' myth of John McCain. I can see people going against Obama because of his unfortunately foreign-sounding name, but I suspect that most of the people who vote against Obama are people who are unlikely to vote Democratic anyway.

PS - The inverse is also true, BTW. Over 90% of black people will vote for Obama not because he is black, but because he is a Democrat.

[beachpoet]

So are you saying that, had Hillary won the nomination, 90% of black people would have voted for her because she was a Democrat?

[lovetheworld]

This is a true statement. Democrats are the most reliable constituency of the Democratic party. By far. So yes, that's a true statement.

In Hillary's case, most blacks would have given her their vote, in spite of the highly racialized campaign Bill and Hillary waged.

[sd4peace]

Why not? Bill got at least 90% of the Black vote, just like every Democrat since JFK

[Teyshar]

Yes. I concur with the sntiment that blacks would vote for Hillary because we would get Bill. Of course that was early in the Primary. The Black community did not take well to the attack mentality against Obama. Sure we preferred Clinton to the unknown Obama, but we marshalled together when it appeared that racial overtones were being thrown out. Rich blacks like Johnson talking about Obama like he was a dirty crack dealer. The fantasy of Obama's campaign. The comments about talking white with whites and then Black with blacks. It left a poor taste in my mouth at least. Blacks gathered in their homes, churches, Barber shops, and elsewhere and started to look at the person Barack Obama.

They then looked at the Clinton's and the real problem surfaced. We have as early as the end of the Civil War had a penchant for people outside our community pretending to be in it just to get black votes. Then when the chips are down to kick us to the curb. Hillary i think would have won SC if not for Edwards. Maybe it would have happened in NH by a wider margin. Maybe even Iowa. But when the hispanic card was played in aversion to the black card. It became a hustle. And the fallout began.

But even so, we would still vote for Hillary Clinton. Maybe in huge number but 90% for her.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Can't disagree with much in Mr. Bafumi's post.......

Working perhaps FOR Obama is the fact that polls are manifestly less reliable than at any time in the last 30 years or so:
.....for some obvious reasons (the cellphone/landline disparity, for example).......

.......and some intangible ones (just how MUCH of a headwind does Obama face in terms of covert racism?)

It looks like "new voters" formerly known as "the youth yote" ........
(you know,....the group that has been going to turn out in droves and change EVERYTHING ...... in every election since '68 ....but never quite shows up??)....
.....may actually make itself felt in the GE this time, as it certainly did in the Democratic primaries.

The degree to which that happens will be highly significant for Obama.

Bafumi is also correct, unfortunately that those states with DETERMINITIVELY large African American populaions are so solidly red or blue as to make this a non-factor in all but one case the key (and formerly RED) swing state of the Va. Commonwealth.


So will come down to the usual large swing states Ohio, Pa. Michigan and Va.

I'm writing Fla. off thanks in part to the antics of Mr. Dean's insufferable bylaws comittee, as well as to Obama's inherent weaknesses among significant demographics there. I'll also confess to a personally held belief, (having spent some significant time in Fla.) that covert racism is about ubiquitous as oranges are there.
continued
tm

[TommyMcCarthy]

continued

While I'm inflaming certain of my Huffpo brothers and sisters I might as well add the following:

The only sure-fire electoral "insurance available to Sen Obama at this point is to put Sen. Clinton on the ticket and dispatch an underling to the White House to measure for drapes.

Evan Bayh?? Tim Kaine?? Lord!....... Why not just go ahead and nominate Sam Nunn himself?

While my crystal ball remains in the shop.....
I submit that the day Sen. Obama announces Bayh, or Kaine or ANYONE other than Sen. Clinton (short of Al Gore or Colin Powell) ......

thereby giving almost exactly one half of the Democratic party, and millions of independents "the finger" ............

will be the day future historians point to when they say "THERE.....right THERE's when he lost it"

Considering the stakes for the ecomony, ....
for our childrens future (do you really hate Hillary enough to condemn your GRANDchildren to serve in Iraq?)...
indeed for the world and the very planet we live on.....
it's hard to imagine how any thinking Democrat can come to any other conclusion.

Sen. Obama needs to MAKE this tough call, .....one that will not please everybody, and might not be what even HE might prefer in a perfect world, (ya' know.......the kind of thing a PRESIDENT does)...........

..........and go ahead and become President in a LANDSLIDE and get on with repairing the incredible damage done in the last 8 years.
You KNOW I'm right.
Regards
tm

[sd4peace]

The point you are delibrately leaving out, is the fact that just because almost one half of Dems preferred Clinton in the primaries doesn't mean they won't vote for O if he doesn't pick her as a running mate. We are talking about Democratic voters, the vast majority of Democrats are going to (surprise) vote for the Democratic candidate, with the exception of a small percentage of PUMAS and some racists who happen to be Democrats also.

[Trinidad707]

Joe, Obama is the presumptive nominee only! he doesn't have enough delegates yet to be a nominee....if that happens it will be at the convention. and if Hillary is on the ballot they the delegates could all switch

[nomobull]

give it a rest she lost he won .

[LeftRight]

He has MORE than enough delegates to be the nominee. There are NO MORE delegates out there. The only reason that he is the "presumptive" nominee (just like McBush!) is because the actual VOTE of the delegates has not taken place yet. Nor will it until the convention!

[Trinidad707]

Joseph, Obama is not the nominee...he is the presumptive nominee......until all delegates vote, and they can change their minds of Clinton is on the ballot...I know I would if I was a delegate

[jeg]

Now, that would be backing a losing candidate. Sen. Clinton hasn't been campaigning, isn't set up for campaigning, and would be starting with a 2 month deficit, the contention that she "stole" the nomination, and would be one of the few things to rally the Republican base.

It's a bad idea, it won't happen, and even Sen. Clinton knows that all it would do is ensure a Republican victory in November.

It's time to move on, and support the Democratic candidate for President... Sen. Barack Obama.