Rules Matter...but Luck Does Too

The Providence Journal's, Froma Harrop, ran a column of Clinton talking points this morning. In all the talk (both from her and separately from the Clinton campaign) of all the different metrics of nomination success, Florida and Michigan voter disenfranchisement and the undemocratic nature of caucuses, one thing continues to be underdiscussed in this Democratic nomination battle.

The bottom line is that RULES MATTER. We see the effects of those rules in a close race, but also see how adaptable each candidate's campaign is to those rules. Obama's campaign was better at foreseeing how the race would progress. PERIOD. Was that by design? Yes, but to a large degree there is some luck involved there. He had to have all the chips fall in just the right place for that plan to work. So while there may have been discussions within an Obama campaign still in its infancy then about a caucus strategy as early as last summer, they still needed Iowa or New Hampshire or Nevada or South Carolina to help even get his campaign to that point (the caucus phase between Super Tuesday and Wyoming a month later on March 8). Those Obama successes in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina were anything but given even at the outset of the 2008 calendar year.

Foresight and luck are the marks of a long shot winning the nomination. Arguably Obama is not, in 2008, the long shot that Jimmy Carter was in 1976. Both, however, were effective at navigating through the rules of the game. And things worked out the way both campaigns expected; both by design and through some luck. Carter needed early success in Iowa and New Hampshire to set him up for an elimination contest against George Wallace in Florida. He needed that elimination to claim the mantle as the southern (albeit more moderate) candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination.

In 2008, Obama needed a win, any win, among the early states to be seen as viable in the overall contest and heading into Super Tuesday on February 5. That he got a win in mostly white Iowa was certainly better than having broken through in South Carolina, where African Americans made up over half of the primary electorate. But his win in Iowa signaled to African Americans that he was viable to an audience broader than simply African Americans. Without that signal, the race may not have played out the way it did in South Carolina. The polls in the state prior to Obama's Iowa win showed a tight race between Clinton and Obama. And even then the endorsement of the influential, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), was still sought after by Clinton, Edwards and Obama to put any one of them over the top. But it was just before It wasn't until after South Carolina that the strained relations between the Clintons and the black community began to appear. Obama's campaign emerged from both state victorious and proved their knowledge of the rules by gaining one more delegate than Clinton in Nevada, despite losing the popular vote (That knowledge of the rules extended to subsequent steps in the Nevada process as well.). Obama's path, then, was not necessarily a clear one.

On the other hand, at the outset of the contests, Clinton's path to the nomination was the clearer one. But luck runs both ways and Clinton had some bad luck. Her campaign leaned way too heavily on the approaches to the presidential primary process of the past. But we all did. Why wouldn't both parties' nominations be settled by Super Tuesday? That's the way it had been in most nomination contests since 1988. [Of course, the Clinton campaign didn't fall back on those approaches enough to take her name off the ballot in Michigan for that state's non-sanctioned primary. That decision was curious at the time given her status as front-runner.] The Super Tuesday or bust strategy was fine, in and of itself, but they never had a Plan B in place if the states that held contests on February 5 didn't hand her enough delegates for the nomination. And they certainly didn't foresee Obama building a firewall in caucus states.

The message, as always, is that rules matter. And if your knowledge of them is anything less than full, then you are vulnerable to defeat. The discussion, then, is not one of whether caucuses are democratic, or popular votes should be the metric by which a nominee is determined, or of Florida or Michigan. That's a discussion that can be had by both parties when and if they seek to reform the process between now and 2012. The discussion is about a campaign that thought primary season would go one way and later discovered (the hard way) that they had guessed wrong.



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The Electoral College Maps (5/21/08)

Colorado Congressional District Caucuses Final Tally: 67% of the Vote, 64% of the Delegates

And Off Again: Kansas Presidential Primary Bill Vetoed

The Electoral College Maps (5/21/08)

In last week's glance at the electoral college, I argued that once there was more polling data, it would be easier to see whether Obama's post-North Carolina/Indiana inevitability (at least as it was designated by the pundits) had any effect on the electoral college projections. After all, if Obama was inevitable, the expectation would be to see his numbers rise while Clinton's numbers dropped. At the national level, that is exactly what the polls are indicating; Obama's lead over Clinton has risen to nine points.

On the state level? Well, the gains haven't been as noticeable there. There were 16 new polls this week in 13 states, and the net effect across both sets of hypothetical races was that Washington flipped from a McCain toss up to a Clinton toss up, handing the New York senator a six electoral vote advantage in the electoral college. However, the one caveat to the polling for the week was that Clinton has begun to be dropped from consideration by the polling firms. In three polls (Georgia, New Mexico and Pennsylvania), the Obama/McCain question was asked but the Clinton/McCain question was not. This isn't widespread yet, so the effect of a lack of data in her weighted average against McCain is minimal. When and if this trend increases as primary season wanes, we may begin to see a more static Clinton/McCain map and a more volatile Obama/McCain map (at least in relation to the Clinton map).

Though the outcome of the electoral college shifted very little this week, there were some notable changes. To the maps!
This week, having Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania on her side pays off for Clinton. Of course, it took adding Washington's 11 electoral votes to her total to push her over the top. As I mentioned, though, that's all it took to hand her an advantage over McCain, however slight. Again, this looks a lot like the Kerry and Gore maps from the past two cycles. Clinton picks up Florida and Ohio, but loses out in states like Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Oregon. McCain actually holds a forty electoral vote advantage (212-172) among states that are either strongly in favor of or leaning toward one candidate or the other. However, Clinton makes up a lot of ground in the swing states, picking up 100 of the 154 toss up electoral votes (states in purple and brown).

Does Clinton increase the number of states where she has a better McCain margin than Obama, though?
The only change there is that she adds New York. The amount of difference between Obama and the former First Lady there are minimal, though, as either Democrat is expected to win the Empire state in November. Clinton continues to hold an edge in McCain margin over Obama in the traditional, big swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The differences in those states are relatively small though (less than 5% in Pennsylvania and less than 10% in Florida and Ohio). Both Clinton and Obama win in Pennsylvania, but Obama comes out on the wrong end in Florida (McCain lean) and Ohio (Toss Up favoring McCain).
The McCain/Obama map is largely the same this week. The electoral college outcome is the exact same. McCain edges out Obama by the same two electoral college votes (270-268) that he did a week ago. In the states where they are either strongly ahead or hold a small but significant lead, McCain leads 213-207. Notably, the number of toss up electoral votes continues to drop in the McCain/Obama match up. McCain became more comfortable in Nebraska this week with that state moving from toss up to McCain lean. Among the remaining toss up states, Obama took 61 electoral votes to McCain's 57. The McCain/Obama race is close no matter how you cut it. They split fairly evenly the number of strong and leaning states and also evenly split the toss up states. The interesting thing is that the McCain/Clinton pairing now has more toss ups than the McCain/Obama race; a decided shift from earlier iterations of these maps.
While the number of toss up states has dwindled for Obama, he still maintains a higher McCain margin than Clinton in 35 states. However, the map is becoming more and more yellow. And a yellower map means that no matter who the Democrat is that faces McCain in November, the results are largely similar. It just happens that Obama hold the (slight) advantage in most of those states. The result is that these maps show that who faces McCain in November makes no significant difference at this point. The electoral college is close no matter who is paired with McCain and the margins in the swing states continue to converge. Clinton, however, has lately continued to contend that she would be the better general election candidate. That is not borne out here. She is doing better than she was, but she and Obama are in the same position relative to McCain.

The pundits calling the race for Obama after Indiana and North Carolina not only hasn't had an effect in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, but it hasn't driven any movement toward Obama on the state level like it has on the national level. At this point, it is not likely that any real change will occur in these head-to-head match ups until primary season is complete. Of course, that's only two weeks away. On to Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota.

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


Recent Posts:
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And Off Again: Kansas Presidential Primary Bill Vetoed

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Colorado Congressional District Caucuses Final Tally: 67% of the Vote, 64% of the Delegates

In Nevada there was a pronounced difference between the percentage of the vote both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got in the first round of caucuses in the Silver state and the percentage of delegates each eventually got. And while there isn't a full picture of how things shook out in Colorado over the weekend, we now know the delegate breakdown from each of the state's congressional district caucuses. Of the 36 delegates allocated based on congressional district caucuses, Clinton improved slightly upon her initial numbers in the precinct-level meetings; inching up from around 33% of the vote there to about 36% of the delegates from the state's 7 congressional districts. This means that this increase is either a function of the math of the process (ie: dividing the delegates into each of the districts and then the potential for rounding up to the nearest delegate within each) or the reports that the Colorado Clinton supporters were out in full force in Colorado Springs this past weekend have some merit.

In any event, Clinton's gains, however slight, go against the prevailing hypothesis that emerged in the recent post concerning how Obama's "inevitability" following North Carolina and Indiana would affect him in the continuing caucus process. Again, we don't have the full picture of the Colorado delegate situation because the 19 state convention delegates have yet to be reported by the Colorado Democratic Party. It does, however, show that unlike Nevada, Clinton made gains in the arena where Obama had done best during this primary season: caucuses. Will that help her make a better case to superdelegates? Probably not. Not with a 10 delegate deficit (13-23) among just these 36 delegates.

I'll be back with more when the state convention numbers are posted.

Still no word out of Kansas either.



Recent Posts:
And Off Again: Kansas Presidential Primary Bill Vetoed

The Links for 5/19/08: Kentucky, Oregon, Electoral College Ties and More

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And Off Again: Kansas Presidential Primary Bill Vetoed

Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius today vetoed a bill that would have established a presidential primary in the state for the 2012 presidential nomination cycle (via Ballot Access News). For the second straight year, then, Kansas' efforts to transition to a primary election came up short. Last year, the plan to create a primary and schedule it on the Saturday prior to Super Tuesday failed to make it out of the state legislature before the session ended. This year's version proposed the same Saturday before the first Tuesday in February date, but was hampered by the inclusion of a provision within the law requiring a photo ID at polling places in order to vote.

The quirk in all of this? Well, as I've been pointing out (see here, here and here), scheduling a primary on such a date would violate both major party rules on the matter. At least in terms of the rules as they were constructed for the 2008 cycle. Kansas would have faced losing half their delegates on the Republican side and (at least initially) all of their delegates in the Democratic process. Of course, all this assumes that the same rules from 2008 are used in 2012. With the GOP already advancing one plan aimed at reforming the presidential primary process, it is up in the air as to how the calendar will look four years from now. And that doesn't even include a discussion of what penalties the parties would impose on state violating any reformed rules. The reform process will undoubtedly be arduous enough even excluding the potential sanctions the parties would impose to keep all the states in line.

Speaking of Kansas, the Democratic Party there has told me that results from the weekend's state convention should be online some time tomorrow. I'll be back then with an update on how those 11 delegates were allocated.


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Nevada Final Tally: 45% of the Vote, 56% of the Delegates

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The Links for 5/19/08: Kentucky, Oregon, Electoral College Ties and More

Three cheers for Nevada! At least the Democrats in the Silver state were able to hold a state convention over the weekend and count all the votes in a timely manner (...and avoid Ron Paul supporters shutting things down). Obama ended up amassing 14 delegates to the national convention in Denver to Clinton's 11. In the other states FHQ was tracking over the weekend, well, there wasn't that much to track. In the void, the media reports (or lack thereof in the case of Colorado and Washington) seemed to fall back on the idea that the first step determined the allocation of delegates in those states. At least that was how the reporting on Kansas' state convention went (11 delegates were supposed to be at stake in the state convention phase of the Kansas delegate selection plan.). The focus there was on the lt. governor being named an add-on superdelegate (...and that he was backing Obama). Washington received nary a mention and the focus of the Colorado coverage was the senatorial nomination of Mark Udall.

There was news to be had, though. You just had to dig a bit. There was mention of the Colorado Democrats releasing their numbers sometime today in a live blog of Saturday's proceedings over at PolitickerCO. In Washington, information was tougher to come by. With 51 delegates on the line you wouldn't think so though. Enthusiasm seemed high at the 3rd District caucus and Obama emerged with a 4-2 delegate edge from the 8th, according to one participant. [I'll keep tabs on both situations as well as Kansas' throughout the day and post the results when they become available.]

In other news, there are actually a couple of contests occurring tomorrow. Maybe you've heard. Obama drew a huge crowd in Oregon yesterday and holds a slight lead over Clinton in the polls there. The one thing that could hamper his chances is the fact that new voters (a group that favors the Illinois senator) received two ballots (one partisan and one non-partisan). If both are mailed in, only the non-partisan one counts. That could hurt Obama's numbers on the margins. This has gotten a fair amount of media coverage locally in Oregon, so the word may have gotten out. The possibility is still out there, though. Also, CQ Politics has a look at the race in Kentucky up this morning and gives the advantage to Clinton. No surprise there, but the piece does provide a detailed examination of the race in each of the Bluegrass state's congressional districts. A tie is the best they see Obama doing in any of the six districts.

Speaking of ties, FiveThirtyEight.com has an interesting look at the potential for an electoral college tie between McCain and Obama in the fall. Beyond that, they go into the rules that would kick in should that tie occur and who would stand to gain from that. Given the shape of things on the congressional level now, the incoming House would give Obama the edge in a such a scenario. I've mentioned this before, but I'll do so again: If you haven't checked this site out yet, please go by and do so. Excellent analysis.


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Nevada Final Tally: 45% of the Vote, 56% of the Delegates

What started out four months ago as a Clinton win (in terms of votes) ended up as a Nevada victory for Barack Obama in terms of caucus strategy. Obama parlayed a solid January showing in rural Nevada and lower than expected Clinton support at the district caucuses into a three delegate advantage (14-11) over Clinton in the Silver state. All this after losing 51%-45 to Clinton in the first round of the caucuses. Clinton's six point win was not only reversed as Nevada's caucus process progressed, but Obama's perceived advantage was improved upon and solidified coming out of the state convention yesterday.

This fits in with the discussions here concerning the caucus question. Under circumstances that can be considered commonplace in the frontloaded period of presidential primaries, a party's presumptive nominee, having wrapped the nomination up early, would gain support in caucuses through subsequent steps in the process. If a candidate effectively wrapped the nomination up during Super Tuesday, for example, and forced his opponents out of the race, they would stand to increase their support in caucus states where the process's first step was held during the competitive phase of primary season. A presumptive nominee gains as turnout among supporters of the withdrawn candidates at subsequent caucus meetings declines relative to their original turnout. We saw this in Nevada during this cycle as Clinton's support in the district caucuses lag behind her original level of support. The nomination race was still active in 2008 though; Clinton had not dropped out of the race. It can be considered a real victory for Obama then, in terms of strategizing about the caucuses and building up support and turning people out on the grassroots level.

There were also state conventions in Colorado and Kansas yesterday as well as congressional district conventions in Washington. News has been slow filtering out about the final numbers at all those proceedings (other than Udall becoing the senate nominee in Colorado and an add-on delegate going for Obama in Kansas). Unlike Nevada, though, all three of those states handed Obama decisive victories. In other words, there was not that much room for improvement on the original numbers. However, if Obama had such overwhelming victories in those states, it stands to reason that Clinton's support in those states may be depressed compared to what it was originally.

Once that information surfaces, we'll see which way (if any) that went. Tracking...


Recent Posts:
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Will Obama's Seeming Inevitability Help Him as the Caucus Process Draws to a Close?

Let the Backloading Begin: 2012 Arkansas Primary

Obama in the Red States: What Mississippi's 1st District Means

The New York Times ran a story this morning that raised the idea of Obama putting Republicans on the defensive in the South. At issue was what happened in Mississippi's first district special runoff election Tuesday night. The question has been asked in terms of what the outcome (Democrat Travis Childers won in a district that handed Bush over 60% of the vote in 2004.) meant for congressional Republicans, but what does it mean for the presidential race? In late February, The Fix asked a similar question based on the observation that the higher a state's African American population, the more Republican it voted in the 2000 and 2004 elections (Here's my analysis.). Well, that means the South. The Obama campaign has shown the ability to bring many new voters in to the political process during primary season and many have been black. As Merle Black predicted in the Times piece, African American turnout will be high this fall, and that is likely to put the Republicans on the defensive to some extent.

Where and how that higher level of turnout makes the GOP work in the region are the real questions. As the FHQ electoral college maps (see links in the right side bar) have shown, Obama's strength in the South is on the periphery: in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas. The further in to the Deep South the discussion goes, the less likely Obama is to do well, despite increased (or historical) turnout among African Americans. Increased black turnout is one thing, but when it is combined with disaffection among white and typically loyal Republicans across the region, things become more troublesome for the Republican Party. If you are the Republican Party now, you have to hope that both Tuesday's runoff results and the prior special election results were just the product of an energized group of Democrats turning out in numbers well above average for two typically low turnout types of elections. This was a high salience, competitive election (and will be again in the fall), though, and that is more ominous for the GOP. When the trend goes beyond just low turnout in a special runoff election and veers off in direction of disaffection, the GOP, on both the congressional and presidential level, will have to spend time in states in which they don't usually spend too much money and effort having to defend.

Time and effort expended in the South is time and effort that could be spent in swing states. That, more than anything prove to be the power of Obama's ability to bring more states to the table than does Clinton in the general election. If McCain has to work in traditional red states while Obama works on Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, that would give the Illinois senator a decided advantage in the general election.


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Will Obama's Seeming Inevitability Help Him as the Caucus Process Draws to a Close?

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Will Obama's Seeming Inevitability Help Him as the Caucus Process Draws to a Close?

As the race for the Democratic nomination has continued into parts unknown (namely April and May), some attention has been paid in this space to the idea that a candidate gains or loses support/delegates as the caucus process moves from step to step. The posts examining the Caucus Question, as it has come to be known, have focused on the second step of these processes in locales like Texas and Nevada. Nothing, though, is official until the state conventions close in each of the 14 caucus states (Texas included).

There are 498 total delegates (not counting superdelegates and add-ons) at stake in these caucus states and the actual allocation of 286 of them (57%) remains unsettled. In some states, all (Minnesota) or part (Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming) of the allocations were settled during the first step and only the identity of those pledged delegates remains uncertain until after the conventions. For 11 of the states (North Dakota already held its state convention and Hawaii's delegates are bound by the outcome of voting in the first step.), there are still delegates on the table, ranging in number from 5 (Wyoming) to 78 (Washington) depending on the state.

AK 13 delegates
CO 33 delegates (14 in congressional districts/19 at the state convention)
ID 6 delegates
IA 16 delegates
KS 11 delegates
ME 24 delegates
NE 8 delegates
NV 25 delegates
TX 67 delegates
WA 78 delegates (51 in congressional districts/27 at the state convention)
WY 5 delegates

Will Obama's inevitability (at least in terms of how his campaign has been covered in the media since Indiana and North Carolina last week) affect the delegate distributions from those states. Obviously there is a baseline in place in each of these states based on how the voting in the original, precinct-level caucuses came out. However, as we've seen in Texas and Nevada already (see above), there has been a modest amount of movement toward Obama as the caucus process has moved to subsequent steps. With the exception of Wyoming, Iowa, Texas and Nevada, the other caucus states delivered Obama a 2:1 or 3:1 victory over Clinton. Iowa and Nevada had more candidates involved than just Clinton and Obama, so shifts in those totals as the steps progressed would be expected. By the time of the contests in Wyoming and Texas, the Clinton campaign was aware of and defending against (to some degree) Obama's organizational advantages in caucuses. In the states where he had at least a 2:1 advantage during the first step, there is only limited room for improvement.

Starting tomorrow and over the weekend, observers can begin to test whether Obama's status now as the "nearly presumptive nominee" (and you thought presumptive nominee was already too much to include in a title) will have an effect on his delegate totals from the caucus states. Colorado has three more congressional district caucuses scheduled for tomorrow and the state convention scheduled for the weekend with 14 and 19 delegates to the national convention on the line respectively. Kansas and Nevada wrap up their caucus processes with state conventions over the weekend as well. The big prize will be the Washington congressional district meetings, where 51 delegates to the national convention in Denver will be at stake.

After this weekend the undetermined caucus delegates will dwindle to 166, over a third of which is accounted for by Texas. After the upcoming contests in Kentucky and Oregon on Tuesday, those remaining caucus delegates may not matter as much if Obama reaches the majority of the pledged delegates, as his campaign is projecting.


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Let the Backloading Begin: 2012 Arkansas Primary

There has already been a handful of states that have introduced or signaled that they would introduce state legislative bills to establish and/or move up a presidential primary for the 2012 cycle. Indiana and Kentucky have indicated that their May primaries could coincide with what would be Super Tuesday during the next cycle (should the same rules from 2008 be used then), the first Tuesday in February. The legislature in Kansas (here, here and here) has gone back and forth over the idea of establishing a presidential primary for 2012 and scheduling it for the Saturday before Super Tuesday. And Minnesota has discussed shifting from a caucus system to a primary, but would keep the contest on Super Tuesday for 2012.

Arkansas, however, becomes the first state to reconsider their decision to frontload the state's presidential primary for 2008. State Rep. Nathan George has already said that he will introduce legislation next year to move the newly-created, separate presidential primary election back to the late May date that coincides with the state's primaries for state and local offices (via Ballot Access News). Of course, had the Natural state held its primary where it had been since 1992, we'd be talking about Clinton's great chances next week in Arkansas and Kentucky and possibly of Obama needing to come through with a victory in Oregon to hold off a late Clinton charge.

Such a move is not without precedence. Arkansas moved its delegate selection back to the same May period for the 1992 cycle after a caucus in 1984 and a primary among the other southern states during the Southern Super Tuesday in 1988. In both instances the benefits of the move didn't necessarily match (or exceed) the costs. Both times Republicans benefited from the move Arkansas made. In 1988, George H.W. Bush used the southern swing as means of establishing himself as the front-runner (and nearly inevitable nominee) while the Democrats split the contests of that day. The 2008 Arkansas primary was an afterthought on the Democratic side because of Clinton's presence on the ballot. Meanwhile, favorite son, Mike Huckabee used his win there combined with his other southern wins on Super Tuesday to cast doubt on McCain's ability to appeal to the conservative side of the Republican Party. In essence, then, the Democratic-controlled state legislature in Arkansas has helped the Republican Party more with its moves (Though, with some potential division within the GOP bubbling below the surface, it could be argued that Arkansas helped to raise questions about McCain, if that division were to become more pronounced. But in a world of quick fixes and instant gratification, that's crazy talk. "Wait for the effects of these things before reacting? I don't think so. Let's move this thing back.").

I would wager that this decision in Arkansas over this proposed move (if, in fact, it is introduced) hinges on a couple of things:
1) Financial concerns: If the return on investment is viewed as sub-par, then the decision may be made to move back and save the money. Having an influence over who the nominee is before the decision is made, though, may outweigh that. Which brings up...

2) Will 2012 more closely resemble 2004 or 2008? If it is the former, Arkansas may value that influence even if it means scant attention from the candidates among a crowded field of contests. If 2012 looks like 2008, Arkansas could move back and get more attention.

I've maintained in this space before that 2008 is move aberration than anything and that 2012 will offer a return to the past in many respects; rapid-fire nomination decision(s) being one of them. More often than not though, what we've witnessed in the post-reform era is that once a state moves early, it stays early. The jury's still out on what Arkansas will do.


Recent Posts:
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20%!?! That's the Bar in West Virginia?

Would McCain Have Won Under the Ohio Plan?

Did IN/NC Deal Clinton a Death Blow in the Electoral College?: The Electoral College Maps (5/14/08)

In the wake of the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, many pundits called the Democratic nomination in favor of Barack Obama. But a resounding win last night in West Virginia indicated 1) that it was a good state for Clinton to rebound and 2) that there is still some support for a Clinton candidacy out there. A win in the Mountain state was expected for Clinton and that expectation in conjunction with the pundits' declarations and the steady march of superdelegates to Obama would have triggered a downward trend in her poll numbers in the hypothetical match ups with John McCain. Has this been the case, though?

[Keep in mind that these maps reflect the weighted averages of the state polls since Super Tuesday. They give more emphasis to the recent polls and that has the effect of tamping down the volatility of focusing on just the most recent poll(s). It would take a shock to the system--IN/NC perhaps--to move those numbers.]
There were eleven new polls from ten different states this week, but there was very little change in the aggregate (reflected by the electoral college). The McCain-Clinton map is largely the same. The two new polls in North Carolina moved that state from being a strong one for McCain to a McCain lean. Other than that, though, this week's map is the exact same as the one from last week. So, North Carolina and Indiana had no effect, right? Well. over the previous two weeks Clinton had made gains to pull within 16 electoral votes of McCain (where she still is this week). Over the course of the FHQ's map-making efforts, Clinton had made up a 94 electoral vote deficit. It is too early to tell, but what we may be witnessing is a plateauing of Clinton's numbers against McCain before they begin to fall.
Obama continued his rebound from the slight, if inconsistent (across all the states), dip in the polls after the Wright/bittergate revelations. Most of that decline was in swing states, where he has bounced back; adding Michigan to his side of the ledger last week and Pennsylvania this week. In the electoral college, that decrease in the weighted average of the polls meant a decrease in his number of electoral votes. Two weeks ago, he was at 229, but in that interim, he has pulled back into that virtual tie that with McCain; trailing the Arizona senator by just two electoral votes.
What effect does it have, though? Obama doesn't pick up any more states at the expense of Clinton. She still maintains an advantage over the Illinois senator in the same 14 (or so) states she has had a better McCain margin in since March. New polling in Oregon gave Obama a higher McCain margin against Clinton there while an additional poll in Georgia had the effect of pulling the two candidates closer together there in relation to McCain. Neither candidate makes much of a difference there now (That Obama had a more comfortable margin before was inconsequential anyway, as the state was still strong to McCain in both instances.). The basic picture remains the same, though: Obama does better against McCain in more states than Clinton does. He only has eight more electoral college votes against the Arizona senator then does Clinton, however.
Is Clinton out in the electoral college race against McCain? No, not yet. But her numbers there have stabilized this week and that may indicate a line of demarcation between competitiveness in that hypothetical race and a decided advantage to McCain. More data in the week to come will help us answer that question in the aftermath of Clinton's victory last night.

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


Recent Posts:
20%!?! That's the Bar in West Virginia?

Would McCain Have Won Under the Ohio Plan?

Tales from the Kennedy School Symposium on Presidential Primaries