As Andres Ramirez, Vice President for NDN's Hispanic Programs, reports, MSNBC and the Wall Street Journal have released a new poll showing it 47-41 Obama-McCain, very similar numbers to previous polls over the the last two weeks. Some thoughts on where the race seems to be now:
There should no longer be any doubts about Obama's general election appeal, or his ability to put together a winning coalition -- four major polls now show the same thing -- an African American with a funny name is clearly defeating a celebrated and universally known American war hero, who in this race is more incumbent than challenger. While we have a long way to go, consider this passage from the new MSNBC analysis, which shows Obama winning among Hispanics, women, white women, Catholics, independents and blue-collar workers:
In the head-to-head matchup, Obama leads McCain among African Americans (83-7 percent), Hispanics (62-28), women (52-33), Catholics (47-40), independents (41-36) and even blue-collar workers (47-42). Obama is also ahead among those who said they voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries (61-19).
Yet among white men -- who made up 36 percent of the electorate in the 2004 presidential election -- Obama trails McCain by 20 points, 55-35 percent. "That is the reason why this election is close," Hart notes.
In addition, McCain leads Obama among white suburban women (44-38), group which makes up about 10 percent of all voters that Hart calls "absolutely critical" for both candidates in the fall.
However, Obama has a seven-point advantage (46-39) among all white women. How important is that lead? Newhouse explains that Republican candidates always expect to win white men by a substantial margin, but it is white women that usually decide the race. "If a Republican wins among white women, we usually win that election," he says, noting that George W. Bush carried that group in 2000 and 2004.
Among Hispanics McCain is showing surprising weakness Obama surprising strength -- As we've written before, McCain is now 15 points net below Bush's 2004 numbers with Hispanics. This shift with this community, voting at much higher numbers than 2004, could end up swinging four states Bush won to the Democrats -- CO, FL, NM, NV -- and perhaps making AZ and TX competitive.
McCain is not ahead in a single state Democrats won in 2004 -- New polling out this week shows Obama now leading McCain in MI and WI, two states he had previously been ahead in. One of the arguments the McCain camp has been making is that he has the ability to play on Democratic turf. NDN has long believed this argument to be more spin than reality, as the it is hard to believe that in this year of a very damanged GOP brand with a weak, wobbly candidate at its top that McCain could break the lock of the 17 states equalling 248 electoral votes Democrats have won in each of the last four elections. With the only two (MI, WI) of these 17 states McCain had been leading in moving to Obama, the race is now moving to nine states Bush won in 2000 or 2004 -- CO, FL, IA, MO, NC, NH, NM, NV, VA and perhaps other states like AZ, MT and TX (see these electoral college maps NDN has produced to help visualize all this).
I am not in any way suggesting that states like MI and WI won't be contested by McCain, but the notion that there is a clear opening for him in these 17 states with 248 electoral college votes is more spin than reality. Look for the candidate time and TV ads to begin moving to these other states, which are the true 2008 battlegrounds now. For more on the emergence of a new post-Southern Strategy electoral strategy for the Democrats see our recent magazine article, a 50-Year Strategy.
We are seeing a very new electorate emerge in 2008 -- Every poll has to make assumptions about the composition of the electorate to produce its results. Given the huge increase in turnout this year of African-Americans, Hispanics, Millennials and women, and an enormous shift in party ID towards the Dems, this electorate will look very different from any electorate any pollster has ever seen before. This electorate will not only be much more non-white than any electorate we've ever seen, it will be much less white and male than any electorate we've ever seen, and have fewer Republicans than we've seen since at least 1982, perhaps even 1966 (see this essay for more on the growing power of minorities in American politics).
It will also be important to not overstate the role of independents in the race. In the hyper-partisan era of Rove and Bush the number of unaffiliated voters has dropped, with independents only making up 26 percent of the electorate in the last two elections, significantly down from the general rule of thumb of one-third D/R/I. Bush has created more partisans, and from 2004 to 2006, more votes shifted in the two parties than it did among independents, as partisans now outnumber independents by 3:1. Democrats owed their victory in 2006 more to what happened with the two party's partisans than what happened with independents.
Thus, one of the key numbers to watch this year is how well each candidate is doing with their own partisans. If Democrats continue to outnumber Republicans in the electorate by 10-15 points as they do now, it will be just as important for Obama to keep 92-95 percent share of Democrats as it is for him to win independents. And the same is true for McCain. If his weakness with the GOP base causes his share with his own partisans to drop below 90 percent, he will have a very, very hard time winning this election. See this post for more on the declining clout of independents.
Remember that Kerry won both independents and moderates in 2004 and still lost. Bush did much better with his partisans than Kerry did with his. For both Obama and McCain, their partisans will outnumber independents in their own coaliton by at least 3 to 1, and thus at least as much attention needs to be paid to these voters as the media's holy grail of the independents. Thus, in this election I think you will be seeing much more attention being paid to each party's base -- for different reasons - than in past elections. Given the intensity and much more highly networked Democratic base, this is a big, big problem for McCain.
One question pollsters should start asking this cycle should involve the likelihood to take an action on behalf of a candidate. My guess is that Obama supporters are twice as likely to do something for their man than McCain supporters, which in this networked age when a supporter can do so much more than ever before, could become a huge differentiator in the fall election.
Overall, in our much more partisan and networked age, when the barrier to enter into politics has been so lowered, the partisans in both camps have become much more important than they were in late 20th century politics. There are more of them then before, and with all the new tools, there is much more they can do to help their candidate - money, advocacy to their social networks and neighborhoods, voting.
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Then there are also the dirty election tricks that were pulled in Florida and Ohio.
The Dems need a solid plan to deal with these problems or Obama will go down just like Gore and Kerry.
To me, that would be the one advantage of having Hillary on the ticket. She obviously relishes the role of attack dog. By constantly attacking the other side, she could keep them off balance, and hopefully neutralize the swiftboaters. The Dems also need to have be completely on top of election shenangans. Trying to make a case for election fraud after the fact is hopeless, because you can't make accusations stick without backing from the MSM, and they will be solidly behind McCain.
OBAMA '08 - Si, se puede!
Carol
Webb is an especially dumb choice. He's anti-Iraq war, but conservative on almost everything else. The idea here would be that you'd vote for Obama because you'd expect his VP to reverse almost all of his domestic policies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNyNv_UfFUo
I remember how Candidate Kerry was going to win in 2004. All he had to do was be the "not Bush".
Instead of sitting around congratulating ourselves on some imagined great victory in November, we should all be out there working to make sure it happens. And if so is a landslide that turns the Republican Party into the Whigs of our day.
(NB: all weasel words above are necessary for any "prediction" on what is to come this fall. No one really knows)
"Obama's [campaign]... has been an organizational wonder, the political equivalent of crossing a Lamborghini with a Hummer. From the beginning, the Obama campaign has run circles around its foes on the Internet, using MySpace, Facebook and other Web tools to develop a virtual army of more than 1 million donors. The result has been fundraising numbers that have left opponents slack-jawed (last month Obama raised $40 million, compared with Clinton's $20 million).
- Peter Beinhart, Op-Ed Columnist, Washington Post, April 8th, 2008
"I was on a panel with Robert Boorstin, a senior Google executive.... he talked about the world's 1.4 billion Internet users and the way that numbers growing by 250 million a year... about the 10 hours of video being uploaded on YouTube every minute of every day... about the worlds 3 billion mobile devices, with another billion coming in the next three years. He described the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race.
Connectivity: pass it on. We need an American president who embodies it, in Berlin and, eventually, in downtown Tehran."
- Roger Cohen, Op-Ed Columnist, NYT, 12th June 2008
"Neither. I'm an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get."
- John McCain, asked whether he uses a PC or a Mac, Yahoo! News, June 12th 2008
I know a bunch of others like me as well.
I guess I'd know more McCain voters if I had
more friends with no education.
But I just get along better with smart, sophisticated people.
So nearly all my friends are for Obama.
Does that make me a librul "Elitist"?
Cool!
Ya know...it ain't what one *THINKS* they are that makes them what they are, it's *WHAT* they think. I recall the old stories on the evening news and in newspapers about enterprising reporters who would show the "average man in the street" a list of "proposed" amendments to the Constitution. The interviewee often declared the "changes" a damn commie plot. Those changes? The Bill of Rights.
Some "conservatives" are, in truth, liberal in thought. Some "liberals" are conservative, if not fascist.
Will Obama solve all our problems? No. Unless he be a Roosevelt and our times call for such. How much change can he realistically accomplish in the face of real world budgets and a continued Republican Party and the many strands and demands of the Dems themselves? Its hard to tell, but Obama can be no worse than the current occupant, Chimpy. And it looks like he may be a lot better.
My one suggestion is to take up hunting, at least to show he is not anti-hunting. Lots of white males(not me!), particularly the rural less educated white males, care as much if not more about hunting and fishing as they do about abortion. He could win them over by taking a shot at it. They would respect that.
1) The word "bounce" implies a temporary improvement. I think it's more of a post-primary consolidation, with Clinton partisans lining up behind the Democratic nominee. However reluctantly they may be doing that now, I believe they're on board to stay.
2) Obama's strength among Latinos in the recent polling is a pleasant surprise. I had been advocating picking Gov. Richardson for VP to bring the Latinos on board at 70%-plus, but I'm wondering now if that's necessary. Perhaps Obama can use the VP pick for other purposes now.
3) I've been all over the boards asking this, but haven't gotten any answers, so I'll ask again: Why isn't anyone (except me, apparently) talking about Sen. Carl Levin for VP? He has national security credentials (as chair of Armed Services), is a blue-collar champion and likely changes Michigan from purple to blue.
Thanks again for the thoughtful and optimistic analysis!