Is Clinton Back? Delegates, delegates, delegates

And the race goes on. As James Carville said on Meet the Press on Sunday--speculating about what Clinton wins in Ohio and Texas would mean for the race--it helps her rewrite the narrative. And it does. Whether it was the ads or backlash against Obama or sympathy for Clinton doesn't matter. What last night's results mean is that the Democratic primary voters are still almost evenly divided as to who their presidential nominee should be. The Obama campaign's contention is that it still maintains a sizable lead in the delegate count and that the results from the four primaries last night do not significantly affect that lead. However, with the wins she managed yesterday, Clinton now has something to back up the argument that all Obama does is win in small and/or red states. All the while she's winning the states that are important to the Democrats in November.

The race now shifts to Wyoming this weekend and Mississippi on next Tuesday. On paper, both look like Obama territory. Wyoming is a caucus state and Mississippi has a high African American population on par with other states Obama has won (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina). But there is a catch. And for Clinton, it easily extends this race to Pennsylvania. [Well, I suppose the press is largely discounting Wyoming and Mississippi anyway; already having shifted the focus to the April 22 contest in the Keystone state.] Those are states and the fact that Obama should win them fits the newly crafted narrative of this race. He wins caucuses, small states and red states. She wins the big prizes. And that can't be welcome news for the Obama camp. If Wyoming and Mississippi are discounted, then his chances of shifting the tenor of this race [again!?!] are diminished in the process. So while Obama may have the delegate lead still, his campaign is now on the defensive.

Oh, and I suppose the supedelegates come into the picture at some point. If the contests between now and next Tuesday can't help Obama, then the report that surfaced yesterday that some number of superdelegates may break for him in the near future might. That becomes a contest of its own; one (and maybe only) that may possibly assist Obama in countering the Clinton wins from last night.

All the while, this race has devolved to certain point of negativity and is unlikely to return. And that brings us back to divisive primaries. If this Democratic race continues the slide into negativity, that affects the party's ability to heal those divisions before the convention and in the time between then and the general election. So McCain sits back and smiles, having wrapped things up officially last night. And who can blame him? The longer the Democratic race strings out, the better his chances in November seem to become.


RESULTS:

Ohio

Rhode Island

Texas

Vermont

I'll be back later with a look ahead to the rules in Wyoming, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of looking at polls of Wyoming Democrats.

This Used to be Super Tuesday: Results from Texas, Ohio and the Northeast

And we're off. Could the Democratic race enter the end game Barbara Norrander (2000) discussed in her JOP article? Today's primaries could prove decisive for the Democrats and should put McCain over the top for the GOP nod.

10:34pm: This is going to go on for a while. I'm off for now, but will be back in the morning with a wrap up. In the meantime, keep up to date online with the live blog over at The Caucus.

10:30pm: Things are tight in Texas. Ohio is giving Clinton a slight edge with many of the state's urban areas yet to report. And President Bush is set to meet with John McCain tomorrow and endorse him. McCain may want to avoid too many photos with the president. Of course, those may not matter in November if Clinton and Obama continue to tear each other apart.

9:55pm: As we approach the 10 o'clock hour, we can begin to reflect a bit on the night so far. McCain has wrapped things up on the Republican side. Exit polling out of Ohio (according to The Fix) is showing a very tight race there. As you begin to look at the Election Guide maps (Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont) on The New York Times site, you see a lot more purple (Clinton) than green (Obama). Of course, land doesn't vote, people do.
...unless those people are being "actively disenfranchised."

9:24pm: Huckabee concedes the GOP nomination to McCain. The last of McCain's challengers are out of the race now and he can officially shift gears toward the general election and toward unifying the Republican party behind him. Oh, I suppose he could continue to browbeat the Democrats too while he's at it.

9:23pm: The streak is over. Clinton has won in Rhode Island.

9:17pm: A conference call by the Clinton campaign to highlight the problems in Texas was overrun by an Obama lawyer who claimed they were only complaining because Clinton was losing. You can't make this stuff up. This is why I'm a political scientist. This night has shown one thing (Well, two if you count John McCain officially wrapping up the nomination.): if the Democratic race stretches beyond tonight/tomorrow, it will get ugly and potentially threaten the party's chances in November. That is on the table now.

9:06pm: McCain has been projected the winner in Texas by CNN. Oh, and they also mention that he's sealed the deal on the GOP nomination too.

9:01pm: The complaints have spread south, The Caucus is reporting:

Clinton Complaints: The Clinton campaign is holding a conference call right now to report irregularities in Texas, where they say voters are being “actively disenfranchised.”

Among the complaints, they say that at “numerous locations,” Obama supporters “have taken over the caucus and locked out Clinton supporters.”

Yeah, this race could get ugly if it stretches on past tonight.

9:00pm: Polls are closed in Rhode Island. Now the Texas caucuses are the only event in town. Everyone else is counting votes.

8:55pm: Rhode Island is up next as are the counties held open longer in Ohio and the Mountain time zone's areas of west Texas. All at the top of the hour.

8:40pm: Politico is the source for some juicy speculation. First they broke the story that Clinton may go after Obama's pledged delegates and now they report that Obama has silently lined up a slate of superdelegates who are set to announce their support in the near future. This slate may prove moot if Obama wraps things up tonight. That story remains to be told.

8:38pm: Polls have been held open longer in the Cleveland area to accommodate for the high turnout there today.
---from Politico.com via the Obama campaign

8:32pm: I missed it earlier, but the caucuses got under way in Texas at 8:15pm. Party business first or presidential preference? What will they do? Here's hoping for the latter. Otherwise, it could be a long night.

8:23pm: Ohio, we have a problem. Well, this is hardly scientific, but the counties are being shaded in on the Democratic map of Texas on the New York Times Election Guide. Ohio remains completely colorless. The Caucus via the AP is reporting that the Secretary of State in Ohio has asked for court permission to keep polling locations in Sandusky County, Ohio open until 9pm (see their 7:54 post)..

8:13pm: Ooh, The New York Times has moved the pretty maps from the state by state Election Guides up to the front page for tonight's contest.

8:06pm: Here come the lawyers. Both Democratic campaigns are complaining about voting problems in Ohio. See, I told you Ohio couldn't buy a break. If you recall the divisive primaries post from last week, you may want to mark tonight down as the official point at which competition changed to divisiveness. It has been brewing since the debates, but may boil over after tonight if the outcome is still undecided.

8:00pm: Polls are close in Texas (Well, the polls in the eastern time zone at least.).

7:44pm: I should note that McCain also won in Vermont (see story below on the Obama projection there). Vermont is a solid winner-take-all, so McCain takes all 17 of those delegates, inching closer to that 1191 mark he needs.

7:33pm: McCain is the projected winner of Ohio. With the system there winner-take-all both in congressional districts and statewide, his share of the 88 delegates at stake in the state should get him about half way to the 177 he needs to break the 1191 barrier and win the nomination.

7:30pm: Polls are closed in Ohio.

7:21pm: Ohio closes up shop here in just under ten minutes. I doubt we see such a rapid projection of the winner in the Buckeye state. Flooding caused some polling places to be moved to accommodate voters in the southern part of the state. Ohio just can't seem to buy a break during election time. Officials there certainly hope this isn't foreshadowing of things to come in November. Of course, that is the story USA Today ran last week: stating that higher turnout like the 2008 primaries, could mean problems once the general election rolls around.

7:00pm: Polls are closed in Vermont. Best to just get another win out of the way. Before you could blink, Vermont went, as expected to Obama. The Drudge Report is indicating that the exit polls in the other three states are deadlocked. That's to be expected to some extent, but if your the Clinton camp, you have got to be hoping that what once seemed like a done deal in Rhode Island doesn't end up being the last nail in the coffin tonight when polls close there at 9pm. Change is apparently the winning theme in the exit polls as well, pushing experience on the back burner. Again, the Clinton team better hope that they have been able to co-opt some of that change message that Obama has used effectively to this point.

Primary Day: The Texas-Ohio Edition [Vermont and Rhode Island too]

Welcome to this, the 14th round of Primary Season 2008. With a week off, the contests in Texas and Ohio have received a ton of scrutiny from all angles. So much so, that there has been a kind of calm before the storm (Well, not between the top two Democratic contenders.) as today's contests approached. The media have said what they're going to say about the rules in Texas and changes in voting method in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. With so much time (and so much is a relative term here) the void has been filled by Clinton attacks on Obama. That has been the new story/news story. And the momentum seems to be with Clinton on this; her campaign has planted the seeds of doubt on Obama. Oh sure, the source there is her campaign, but the polls that have come out in Texas and Ohio the last few days back that up.

The Real Clear Politics poll averages in those states showed movement toward Obama late last week in both states. In Texas, those averages gave Obama a slight advantage (within the margin of error) after having been down double digits just two weeks prior. Now, while the Texas race is still a dead heat, the recent polls are giving Clinton that slight edge there (still within the margin of error and still susceptible to Obama's caucus success during the state's delegate selection night cap). In Ohio, Clinton's double digit leads shrunk to as few as four percentage points late last week. With the exception of the most recent Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll (showing a tie), the most recent polls in the Buckeye state stretch the Clinton advantage back to around seven percentage points. So while claims that the infamous "3AM ad" (and that link has a further link to the 1984 phone ad that Mondale ran against Gary Hart as well) is the reason for the momentum shift may be spurious, on its face at least (and in the media) it appears to have had an effect.

Is all the momentum talk moot anyway? That's the contention of the Obama camp; which is claiming that narrow victories by Clinton in these states doesn't get her any closer in the pledged delegate count. The expectations game has been played by both sides on this one and how these contests and their results are perceived will depend to a large degree on how the media reports things tonight.

For those following at home the night will progress like this: Vermont's polls close first at 7pm (all of these times are Eastern). Even given the scant polling that is available from Vermont, it looks as if Obama will kick the night off with an easy win. Ohio strikes next with voting being cut off there at 7:30pm. Call it a hunch, but I doubt this one gets an immediate call/projection from any of the networks. What you might hear is, "too close to call." The polls in Texas close next at 8pm and will most likely resemble the Ohio situation from a half hour earlier. An hour later, voting in Rhode Island stops. Now this one looks like a Clinton win, but what Rhode Island does is keep the media paying attention to results. All the while, the Texas caucuses will have been going on. And Texas Democrats have adopted a system similar to the one used in Iowa to get "unofficial" results from the caucuses out in a quicker fashion. Whether those "results" come out before or after Rhode Island or in relation to the Texas/Ohio projections is a matter that will be solved tonight. Either way you look at it, with these contests potentially proving decisive on the Democratic side, it will be a fun night to follow.

[UPDATE: For those of you like me out there--without suitable cable access--ABCNews.com is streaming coverage of the returns tonight online. None of the three major networks is allotting any time to coverage of the presidential races tonight, yield to regularly schedule programming. ABC is awfully nice to give the online-only class a shot at actually seeing something on a primary night not named Super Tuesday.]

Texas Revisited

I was just alerted to a new layer in the Texas primary/caucus situation (Thanks to Dan Reed for the heads up on the column in the Houston Chronicle.) that may have some interesting ramifications for the Democratic race in the Lone Star state tomorrow and beyond. Sure the news out of Texas and the Clinton campaign has been that a challenge to the results of the primary/caucus could be imminent if they didn't appear be on the up and up (A Clinton win in the popular vote but an Obama edge in delegates won, for example).

Normally, I'd draw parallels between the Texas situation and the challenges brought by the Clinton camp over the casino caucuses in the lead up to the January Nevada caucuses. Texas, though, is different. [I know, a groundbreaking statement there.] Texas, like so many other states across the South and a few other districts across the country, must submit to a preclearance from the Justice Department under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Now, I'm assuming that the state Senate districts that have been the basis for dividing up the delegates available from the state, have been cleared by the Justice Department. While there may not have been close elections in presidential primaries, there undoubtedly have been close contests those state Senate seats and thus the potential for a challenge to the way those districts have been drawn. [No, competitive elections are not necessarily the root of these challenges, but they could trigger one--at least from the candidates' perspective.]

The primary then is not the problem. The caucus is. And that is where the questions arise here. Is the Texas caucus subject to these voting rights act challenges? Some party (individual/group not political party) could bring suit but it would be against the Texas Democratic party and and not the state itself. And that is where the Texas situation falls back into the same area that the Nevada challenge fell. Caucuses are party functions used to decide delegate allocation for the purposes of selecting the parties' nominees. The courts have a history of yielding to the parties (as they did in Nevada earlier this cycle) on these types 0f decisions, citing that the decision is one of party business. A Clinton challenge, if it comes to that, would have to result from an irregularity in the primary results and not the caucus.

From the looks of it DOJ will be in the Houston area monitoring polling places during the primary tomorrow. Sadly for Clinton though, those areas contain many of the African Americans that will be supporting Obama and thus not fertile ground for a challenge.

Divisive Primaries: 2008 vs. The Past

Last night's divisive primaries post and subsequent comments on The Monkey Cage (TMC) got me thinking about divisive primaries a bit more. And I'm wondering if what we call divisive primaries within political science is a blanket term that we use to describe several different but interconnected concepts. There are several layers to this:

Could it be that it is not the divisive primaries at all but the ability/inability to overcome them in a reasonable amount of time that has an effect on general election vote shares? Well, what does "reasonable amount of time" mean? It's a moving target. In 1980, that meant before the convention was over. Reagan and Bush joined forces on one side after a competitive primary fight, while Carter and Kennedy hardly came across as buddies at the Democratic convention. The result: the GOP ticket moved into general election mode while the Democrats continued to put the pieces together internally. [Paul Gurian gets a tip of the cap for placing this notion in my head. He may even be able to bolster the anecdote a bit if he reads this. He's also done some work in this area.] In other words, divisiveness on the Democratic side gave the Republican party a head start. In 2008, the worry for the Democrats is that the Obama/Clinton battle will cause a real rift in the party that won't be able to be healed enough before the election. Which brings us to...

Time, time, time.
The timing is a lot different now than it was thirty years ago. The prolonged primary seasons of the past gave way, for all intents and purposes, to the Super Tuesday model of presidential nomination by 1988 for the Republicans and 1992 for the Democrats. The time between Iowa and Super Tuesday shrunk during that interim, preventing insurgencies from being mounted effectively. If a challenge cannot gain steam then the likelihood of a divisive series of primaries developing decreases. [What's this, a benefit of frontloading? The drawback, of course, is that voters do not have the opportunity to fully vet the frontrunner/nominee, leaving them to suffer from what has been dubbed "buyer's remorse."]

But there's a tipping point here that fits in with this timing issue. At what point does competitiveness morph into divisiveness? This where the 2008 example could (when the history book is written on it) prove illustrative. Jacob Sohlberg, in the comments section over at TMC, alludes to this:

"The fighting candidates and their party get most of the media attention while the real competitor (say McCain) gets little. This is under the (strong) assumption that all news are good news."

And that's the thing: as long as the news is good. At what point does the positive competitiveness of the race for delegates turn into the negative, party-splitting divisiveness? Should Clinton do well in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, then 2008 may have reached that point for the Democrats. But in the Super Tuesday era (1988/1992-2004), no challenger has been afforded such an opportunity. That era was marked by frontrunners who were able to snuff out insurgencies before competitiveness turned to divisiveness. [And just for the record, this is not an obituary for the Super Tuesday era, as I call it. 2008 may prove to be an anomaly and not a system changing election. Let's revisit this in four years and see.] Mondale quelled Gary Hart before a movement started (No, this isn't within the era I defined above but it is a good example.). George W. Bush kept McCain at bay. And Kerry silenced John Edwards. Competitiveness yielded to reality in all three cases before divisiveness took hold or could attempt to take hold.

What we see then is that the ability to stop competitiveness (My, doesn't that sound democratic. This is, of course, from the frontrunner's and national party's perspectives.) in its tracks is important. The GOP's unwritten strategy of going with an "heir apparent" as its nominee makes sense in this context. It helps avoid divisiveness. The onus is then on the Democratic party to steer clear of protracted nomination battles in their overall more competitive nomination process. Should competitiveness turn to divisiveness, then healing the divisions in a timely fashion (at least in relation to the opposing party) becomes the next obstacle.

The Governors on 2008 Frontloading

I originally had this in with the morning post, but it grew into a post of its own.

With the nation's governors in Washington this week for the National Governors Association meeting, Stateline.org got the some state executives to comment on the effects of moving their states delegate selection events (I know, it is weird for this blog to actually shift back to its stated purpose of covering frontloading, but still.). Most governors from states that moved forward seemed to be pleased with the results of moving. Tennessee governor, Phil Bredesen was the lone exception (at least among those cited in the article). He complained that Tennessee got lost in the shuffle on Super Tuesday. Of course he and the state legislature could have left well enough alone. In the lead up to 2004 the state moved to the second Tuesday in February. That would have been February 12 for the 2008 cycle; a far less crowded primary day with only the three Potomac contests being waged that day.

On the other hand, governors in later states came across as bitter, wanting to scrap the whole system of presidential selection. Why blame the system for the inner-workings of the states standing the way of that primary movement? Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania fell into that category, but the Keystone state is one that has had a legislature divided, with one party controlling one chamber and the other party the other chamber, for years now. Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour, also favored looking at alternative methods of presidential nominee selection. Of course the Magnolia state has been mired in a court dispute over the requiring of photo IDs at polling places that has been split along party lines. Waiting on that decision and whether it would be applied to the presidential primary next month affected the state's ability to move its primary.

It is funny to me that caucus state governors are touting their state's moves so gleefully. First of all, caucuses are traditionally (outside of Iowa) the redheaded stepchildren of the delegate selection process. With Obama's success (And Romney's too. No one is really taking about that. He did do well in caucuses.) in caucuses, that form of delegate selection has gotten a lot more coverage during this cycle. However, caucuses are easier to move than primaries (...the majority primaries that are controlled by state legislatures at least. Even party-run primary strongholds like Utah and South Carolina have opened the door to the state funding of those contests during this cycle.).

Caucuses typically fall under the control of the individual state parties and those entities can hold their delegate selection events any time they want to within the rules of the national parties. That effectively removes the fetters of partisanship from the equation. From time to time there will be division within the state party on a primary/caucus move, but not often (The Michigan example from this cycle comes to mind.). It is all about getting those benefits of being early and a state party can pull that off much more easily than a state legislature can, especially if said legislature is divided in some way between parties (And keep in mind that we haven't introduced the complexity of a governor affecting this decision also.).

I'll have more on this in the coming weeks and months as my dissertation on the subject progresses. With the Western Political Science Association's annual meeting looming, my paper on who is making these frontloading decisions will definitely work its way into the discussions here (See, it already has.) among other things.

Early Voting Analysis from Texas and the Events of February 27

With a couple of weeks between contests, the next round of primaries and caucuses are receiving the kind of scrutiny not seen since the pre-Iowa days (Remember those days...when we were still singing Christmas carols? This campaign has already been long and we aren't even out of February yet.). The rules in Texas and the playing field in Ohio have been examined within this space over the last several weeks. However, the broader political science community is starting to weigh in with some actual data from Texas. Now, while NPR will simply state, as they did this morning, that early voting had commenced in both the prized states of March 4, some have gone beyond that to look into what the early information (from the fifteen largest counties) released by the Texas secretary of state's office actually mean.

The folks at both Election Updates and The Monkey Cage have some interesting analysis and commentary on what is coming out of Texas. Former UT graduate student and current John Jay College professor, Brian Arbor has found that early voting turnout is up versus four years ago, and that the increase is in areas that have demographic characteristics similar to voters that have gone with Obama in other states. There are caveats to these findings, to be sure, but some of this information is backed up by Paul Gronke over at Election Updates, who has done a lot of research on the impact of early voting. He cites the Wall Street Journal article that discusses Hidalgo County having the highest proportion of early voting. However, it is also one of the counties in a state senate district that has the fewest delegates at stake; just two. So while Hidalgo is full of the Hispanic voters that Clinton has targeted and proportionally is voting early, it may not in the end help Clinton all that much.

Both points give Obama an edge and must be ominous signs to the Clinton camp in Texas.

In other news, NPR has been discussing the presidential race with noted conservatives this week. Grover Norquist's interview came up in the comments yesterday. This series of interviews has been fertile ground for one-liners. Norquist maintained that McCain played dead last summer (through no fault of his own) and ultimately benefited from the scrutiny his opponents underwent. Today, the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy chief, Richard Land, had a great comment about the Democratic race. He said that Clinton was "on a job interview" while Obama was "on a date." And that really is an interesting way to frame and a testament to the Obama momentum/movement within the Democratic party (and outside of it with independents).

John Lewis made it official yesterday: he's switching over to Obama in a nod to the voices of the constituents within his Georgia congressional district. Now I'll have to see if that change has been reflected in the running tally at Superdelegates.org and on their GEarth layer. This story has already played its way out because of the New York Times story recently, but it still isn't a welcome sign with the Clinton campaign.

Finally, New York mayor (I bet you think I'm going to say Rudy Giuliani. Nope, but I have written that phrase a lot during this cycle, though a lot less lately.), Michael Bloomberg, ended the speculation that he would enter the presidential race as an independent today. And that officially brings to a close the discussions of an all New York race. Yes, it was as recently as late last summer that that was a talking point within the live discussion group here at UGA. And at the time it seemed conceivable that it could happen with Clinton the frontrunner on the Democratic side and Guiliani leading in the polls amongst the Republican candidates. C'est la vie, all New York presidential race.

It's Official: Debates are No Substitute for Actual Contests

The consensus emerging today (and even last night as I came to the realization when MSNBC's online feed of the debate forced me to call it a night earlier than I had expected) is that last night's debate did little to change the course of the race for the Democratic nomination. Clinton did what folks who are not the frontrunner do: she attacked. Obama, on the other hand, filled the frontrunner role and played it safe, hovering above the attacks being levied against him. The movement toward Obama in the polls (via Real Clear Politics) in both Ohio and Texas back up that role assignment. In Texas the polls show a tie, if not a small Obama lead. Ohio's numbers show that what was once a double digit lead is now down to about six points. If that continues, then Tuesday night could provide some drama, especially after last night proved that a debate can only somewhat fill the void left by the absence of real contests. If only New Jersey has not switched primary dates a second time.

I'll keep it light for the rest of the post. There are some interesting links that have popped up recently that may be of some interest to the group.

1) If you have Google Earth installed on your PC, Mac or Linux box (Hey, the 1% of the population that uses Linux counts too!), be sure to check out the superdelegates layer that has been developed. Yes, the same thing is available on Google Maps, but you can't beat the animation that comes with Google Earth. Most of this can be linked to through Superdelegates.org (The .kml file that is necessary to run the script in GEarth there if you click on, "view the info on Google Maps and Google Earth" here or on that page.). The Monkey Cage (moderated by several of the faculty at George Washington University) has a link to the GMaps version.

2) It is a good day for The Monkey Cage here at FHQ. They also have a post linking to Thomas Holbrook's (of Do Campaigns Matter? fame) new Election08Data blog. There's some good stuff there already.

3) And while we're at it, and since they linked to my post on the Texas primary/caucus last week, here's the link to Election Updates, which lists Michael Alvarez, Paul Gronke, Thad Hall, Robert Krimmer and Melissa Slemin as contributors.

Obama and the Red State Question: A Deeper Analysis

Recently, The Fix ran a post looking at the Obama campaign's contention that it, given primary and caucus performances thus far, has the ability to swing red states into the Democratic column in November. This post gets the ball rolling on several questions that may prove worthy of further examination within the realm of political science.

The first, as posed by University of Maryland-Baltimore County associate professor, Thomas Schaller, surrounds the observation that, over the last two presidential cycles, the higher the percentage of state's population that is African American, the better the GOP has done (in terms of vote share for the Republican candidate for president). Now, I've glanced through my trusty journal search engines of choice and have yet to find anything that directly addresses this hypothesis. Several confounding factors come to mind when thinking about this relationship though. The way I see it, swing state status and the number of majority-minority congressional districts may form an interactive relationship.

The states in the South are as solidly Republican now as they were Democratic in the 1960s and before. So while those states are the states with the highest percentages of African Americans, they are nonetheless solidly red. Solidly red means little attention from the Democratic candidates for president though. Voters then, that may be likely to swing one way or the other (and are outside of those majority minority districts), are swayed by what they are hearing (or aren't hearing) within their districts: a Republican message. In other words, if African Americans are packed into one or two districts in a state, while Republicans maintain majorities in the remaining districts, the inattention from both parties in those Republican districts leaves a void that is filled by the prevailing GOP message. The question then becomes, does any Democratic attention in those districts help sway enough independents (or even Republicans) to put the state in the toss up category when the general election rolls around. That is the very type of micro-targeting that the Bush team employed with great success in 2004; making some states more competitive than the conventional wisdom would have thought possible. Ultimately though, does this interaction "explain away" the relationship we've seen in the last two cycles between the percentage of African Americans within a state and the vote share captured by Republican presidential candidates? Well, that begs for further research.

The other question concerns whether Obama (if he becomes the Democratic nominee) can shift the pool of competitive, general election states; pulling in some formerly solidly red states. This one I'll tackle less scientifically. It is very early and we don't yet know exactly who the nominees will be for each party (Fine, McCain is the guy for the GOP, but not officially until he crosses the 1191 delegate threshold.), but there are head-to-head polls that are being conducted on the state level. Again, this is less than scientific, but looking at these polls does give us a glimpse into the potential power of an Obama candidacy in the general election. Here are the states that have had head-to-head polls (conducted and) reported over the last week (Clicking on Clinton or Obama gives you a link to their head-to-head against McCain in these states via Real Clear Politics. Emphasis will be given to polls conducted around or since Super Tuesday.).

Swing States:
Iowa: (Obama, Clinton): Iowa has been a swing state in the last two cycles; going for Gore in 2000 and Bush in 2004. It was one of the few states that actually switched from 2000 to 2004. These early head-to-head polls offer a stark contrast though; a twenty point swing depending on who the Democratic nominee is. Obama leads McCain by ten points, while Clinton trails McCain by the same margin. That's the definition of swing, though not in the terms we're used to in presidential elections. Here's an example of a 2004 red state, that could be comfortably with the Democrats or out of reach based on who the nominee is. Numbers like these don't hurt the electability argument Obama has been pushing.

Michigan: (Obama, Clinton): Obama has an eight point lead over McCain while Clinton is tied. The latter roughly reflects the distribution of votes in the 2004 Bush-Kerry match up in the state. Is there potential for Obama to make Michigan solidly Democratic? Well, we'll have to ask those Michigan delegates who may not be seated in late August.

New Mexico: (Obama, Clinton): New Mexico, like several other states in the following analysis, has been a swing state in the last few general election cycles. It is one of the few states that switched support, moving from Democratic in 2000 to Republican in 2004. Early on it looks like Obama has a decided advantage over McCain in a state that neighbors McCain's own, Arizona. Against Clinton however, McCain is knotted in a dead heat.

Pennsylvania: (Obama, Clinton): In four polls since Super Tuesday, Pennsylvania looks to be shaping up as a swing state again in 2008. In averaging those polls, both Clinton and Obama hold about a percentage point lead over McCain. Gov. Ed Rendell could prove useful as a running mate for either Democrat in that scenario and former Sen. Rick Santorum fits the profile of the a possible McCain running mate (Well, if age was the only balancing consideration.).

Ohio: (Obama, Clinton): If you focus just on the polls from February 2008, then the results are a wash. Clinton would have a two point advantage while Obama and McCain are tied. Ohio is a swing state, regardless of which Democratic candidate emerges.

Oregon: (Obama, Clinton): Like Pennsylvania, Oregon is a state where McCain being the GOP nominee may actually benefit the Republicans. Oregon has been with the Democrats in general elections since 1988. Of course, that only holds if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. McCain has a five point edge over her in Oregon but trails Obama by eight points; a margin twice what Kerry's was over Bush in 2004.

The tally: In the six swing states represented, four give Obama an advantage over Clinton and the two others are virtual ties between the two and McCain.

Blue States:
California: (Obama, Clinton): There really isn't a need to dwell on California for too long. It is a blue state and these poll numbers show that. Ironically, Obama has a larger margin against McCain than Clinton does in the Golden state despite losing the state's primary to her on February 5.

New Jersey: (Obama, Clinton): Both Democrats lead McCain by about the same margin that Kerry beat Bush in the state in 2004. This is a Democratic state unless the leading indicators point to a Republican lean in any given cycle. 2008 is not that cycle for the Republicans (though the Bush folks focused some on New Jersey down the stretch in 2004).

New York: (Obama, Clinton): The surprise here is that Obama does better in Clinton's "home state" than she does against McCain. Across the two post-Super Tuesday polls, his lead is fourteen points to her nine over McCain. In the end New York will be in the Democratic column.

The tally: These three states are part of the Democratic electoral bedrock, and none give either candidate a significant advantage. The Democratic nominee will be in good shape in November no matter which candidate is settled upon.

Red States:
Alabama: (Obama, Clinton): Alabama was a red state and given these numbers will likely stay red. Whether the Democratic nominee is Obama or Clinton doesn't seem to have an effect. One note to make is that Alabama is the one state on this list that falls into the heavily African American hypothesis discussed above. It seems to drive home that perception.

Kansas: (Obama, Clinton): Kansas is a red state where Obama could make a push. Both Democrats trail McCain in these early polls, but the margin between Obama and McCain is much smaller than the one between Clinton and McCain. One of the hot names on the speculative VP list for Obama is Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius. With Obama's Kansas roots (or his mother's) and her on the ticket, that six point margin could quickly dissipate. Do the state's six electoral votes really net the Democrats anything though? I suppose that depends on how close the election is.

Virginia: (Obama, Clinton): Like Kansas, Virginia is a solidly red state (at least on the presidential level), where Obama could make some waves. He and McCain are neck and neck while McCain leads Clinton comfortably. The VP choice could be key to hypothetically putting an Obama-led Democratic party over the top in a state like Virginia. This is why we hear Gov. Tim Kaine's and Sen. Jim Webb's names mentioned in relation to Obama. And with thirteen electoral votes at stake, that could prove a real steal for the Democrats.

The tally: Here's the real question: Does Obama potentially bring red states into the electoral equation for Democrats in the fall. In this rather unscientific analysis, he does seem to bring something to the table in two of the three states represented. Virginia has been circled by Democrats since Tim Kaine's gubernatorial win there in 2005 and Jim Webb's ousting of George Allen in the 2006 midterms. Kansas, on the other hand, is intriguing. The margin is enough that a Kansan on the ticket could mean something. The reason Sebelius is governor is because the Republican party in Kansas is split between moderate and conservative factions. Can those conservatives "hold their noses" and vote for McCain? That is the question and why Kansas is a state the Dems could pick off.

Overall, what do we see from this? Obama is helpful in swing states and may be able to pick some spots in red states that could swing some of those into the Democratic column in November. In blue states however, it really doesn't matter. "Give me a Democrat and I'll vote for them" could almost be the mantra.

What Could Have Been: New Jersey

February 26 wasn't always this lonely. It wasn't always about Cleveland debates and looking forward to primaries in Texas and Ohio. No, for a couple of years (between 2005 and 2007), New Jersey's presidential primary was situated on this, the fourth Tuesday in February. Traditionally one of the states to bring up the rear in early June, New Jersey's legislature opted to position the state's presidential primary three weeks behind Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, then the only three states scheduled for February 5. Once the momentum began to build behind the February 5 Super Tuesday in late 2006 and into 2007 though, the New Jersey legislature moved forward again, joining what even then in April 2007 was shaping up as a logjam in early February.

The intent of the move was to give New Jersey voters an opportunity to weigh in on who the two parties' nominees were to be for the 2008 cycle. And you can't blame the legislature for assuming that the Super Tuesday model would hold for this cycle as it has since basically the 1992 phase. To move and still not be consequential would have looked bad. But the nominations were not wrapped up on Super Tuesday, and that assumption and subsequent gamble may not have paid off as it could have if New Jersey had remained on February 26. Yes, the intent of the move was fulfilled, but residents of the Garden state (at least the Democratic and independent ones) could have been far more important to the Democratic nomination had the brakes been put on the second move.

Just for the heck of it, let's play out this bit of counterfactual history. If New Jersey had kept its presidential primary on February 26, it would have been the only event on that date; the only game in town. Typically that means a ton of media coverage and candidate attention. In 2008 though, that attention would have grown exponentially. Let's call it New Hampshire, part II. In addition, think about the current race for the Democratic nomination. Obama has rolled off eleven straight victories since Super Tuesday (Yes, the Virgin Islands and Democrats Abroad count. They do provide delegates after all.). Clinton may have still faced those same eleven defeats if New Jersey had been on February 26, but at least a contest in some naturally hospitable territory would have been on the horizon. In addition, it could have served as a nice springboard into the contests of next week; possibly throwing the outcome of the nomination into further doubt (Clinton wins next week could still do that, but with a New Jersey win, it would have been easier.). Now sure, a Clinton win in a February 26 New Jersey primary could have been spun by the media as a contest she should have won, thereby shifting the focus to the margin of victory and delegate totals. However, you can't underestimate how important potentially breaking Obama's winning streak ahead of March 4 could have been to the Clinton camp. It could have fundamentally altered the course of the race.

Finally, and most importantly, a February 26 New Jersey primary would have meant that political junkies wouldn't have to sit idly by waiting two weeks for the next round of contests.