The Story of the Pennsylvania Primary
I admit it. I have Kerry disease. I admit I am flip-flopping. I have no idea who will come out. Every time I feel like I get confidence on one position, something changes.
Per CNN, Hillary won by an expected 10% of the popular vote, or about 215,500 votes at the time of this post. In and of itself, not a big deal, considering Obama’s pledged delegate lead.
However, per RealClearPolitics count (and sorry if the info changes by the time you check, they will probably update soon), Hillary will still be down about 284,000 votes, which is less than 1% of the vote. If you include the Florida votes, Hillary is ahead.
Again, let’s go through the remaining states. Hillary will lose, and lose big in North Carolina, but will probably win huge in WV and Kentucky. I think that combination will essentially cancel itself out. Hillary will lose in Oregon, but by single digits, but Hillary should win in Puerto Rico by a comparable amount, so she will lose some ground. However, the amount of more votes counted will mean that while the total deficit Hillary will face might be 300 or 400,000 votes, the amount of votes counted will mean that the difference between the two on the popular vote will be less than 1%…probably. (Although, note, all of this could be thrown out with timely support by Gore or Edwards).
That leaves the May 20th primary in Indiana and the June 3rd Primaries of South Dakota and Montana as the states that might determine who the nominee is. According to RealClearPolitics, Hillary has a 2.2% lead, although the differences from the component polls show that that prediction is hardly set in stone. Who knows what Montana and South Dakota would vote for.
Here is my point though. These are the three states that are left that are legitimate battle ground states. However, all three states have voted consistently for Republican presidents in recent history, and by generally large margins (Indiana, South Dakota, Montana). Indiana and Montana have open primaries.
This means, that if the Republican Party in Indiana and Montana really wanted to throw a wrench in the Democratic primary, they could go out and vote for Hillary, win her those states and decrease the overall popular vote lead Obama has, if not totally erase it. Indiana had 1.5 Million Republican voters in the last election, and 266,000 in Montana (of approximately 450,000 total). It would take 15% of the people who voted Republican in those states last year to come out and vote for Hillary and to totally erase Obama’s popular vote lead. And then, it becomes a question of do you base the nomination on an incomplete computation of delegates or the popular vote, which leads to an active convention.
The next couple of months should be fun to watch.
Comment by tet on 23 April 2008 at 12:05 am:
I believe, Prescott, that 14% of the voters in the Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania were either first-time voters or former Republicans.
I don’t think that those former Republicans are cross-overs to vote for Hillary and screw up the Democrats. I think that the situation is so bad for the GOP that those folks who voted Democratic in Pennsylvania are lost to the Republicans, perhaps for the rest of their lives.
Let’s see what happens in those “traditionally Republican States” you’re talking about If the same thing occurs as far as cross-overs go, we’ve got a trend, and it could be another 1964.
Tom
Comment by kofi the i'd accept if you can't beat them, stay home on 23 April 2008 at 12:35 am:
Tom, the problem with your theory is that the last place a disenfranchised Republican would go is to the Democrat party. Republicans are upset that their representatives have not adequately advocated their position. They elected small government fiscal conservatives and got big government big spenders. I won’t deny that many Republicans are unhappy with their party, but by what logic do you conclude that they would manifest their discontent by joining a party that explicitly espouses policies they oppose? Do you really think “if you can’t beat them, join them” is a political ideology?
Comment by kofi the i'd accept if you can't beat them, stay home on 23 April 2008 at 12:35 am:
Tom, the problem with your theory is that the last place a disenfranchised Republican would go is to the Democrat party. Republicans are upset that their representatives have not adequately advocated their position. They elected small government fiscal conservatives and got big government big spenders. I won’t deny that many Republicans are unhappy with their party, but by what logic do you conclude that they would manifest their discontent by joining a party that explicitly espouses policies they oppose? Do you really think “if you can’t beat them, join them” is a political ideology?
Comment by kofi the i'd accept if you can't beat them, stay home on 23 April 2008 at 12:35 am:
Tom, the problem with your theory is that the last place a disenfranchised Republican would go is to the Democrat party. Republicans are upset that their representatives have not adequately advocated their position. They elected small government fiscal conservatives and got big government big spenders. I won’t deny that many Republicans are unhappy with their party, but by what logic do you conclude that they would manifest their discontent by joining a party that explicitly espouses policies they oppose? Do you really think “if you can’t beat them, join them” is a political ideology?
Comment by Brian on 23 April 2008 at 6:00 am:
I haven’t looked this up at all, but based on what Chuck Todd was saying on MSNBC last night, I think you’ve got your numbers wrong. Before Pennsylvania, Obama had been up in the popular vote by about 700,000 NOT including Florida. Counting Florida would close the gap by about 300,000, plus the 200,000 from Pennsylvania. That leaves, as of right now, about 200,000 gap remaining WITH Florida already included.
Now, I think it’s total nonsense to include Florida. But even if you do, it will be really, really hard for Hillary to close a 200,000 vote gap in the remaining primaries. North Carolina by itself will probably largely wipe out Hillary’s gains from Pennsylvania, putting it back at a 400,000-ish gap.
Moreover, by the time all the primaries are over and done with, even if no more superdelegates declare support for Obama between now and then, Obama will likely be under 100 delegates shy of the nomination. While Hillary will need a large majority of superdelegates to go her way, Obama will need only a small minority. I suspect he’ll get a large majority, but he doesn’t need that to win.
Comment by Brian on 23 April 2008 at 6:13 am:
I’d also argue South Dakota and Montana are pretty clearly Obama territory, but I imagine you will just attribute that to zombie-like, drooling blah blah.
Comment by J. Prescott on 23 April 2008 at 7:29 am:
Brian was right, I did get the numbers wrong. It was 700,000 at the beginning of the night but 500,000 after Pennsylvania. It was late at night, I had been trying to write the paper from hell, and I made a bad assumption, so sorry about that.
My suggestion about crossing over in the future was in no way a commentary about what has happened with cross overs up to this point. This all could be very true. Of course, most of you have probably heard the Rush Limbaugh is claiming that at least a portion of the people crossing over are doing so at his suggestion in an effort to lengthen the primary season. Whether this has happened or not, I don’t know, but if some of the cross overs were people who were following Limbaugh’s suggestion, I doubt it has had much of an effect.
Anyway, like I said in the post, I honestly have no idea what is going to happen. I throw in the towel; my ability to predict is obviously suspect.
Comment by tet on 23 April 2008 at 10:51 am:
Kofi, either you’re completely wrong or the folks coming out of the polls were lying to the pollsters (a possibility I cannot, of course, discount).
A core constituency of the GOP is made up of blue-collar workers who came into the party during the 1980 election–before many of our correspondents were born. They became Republicans because the Democrats were not sufficiently protecting them in areas that they considered to be important–jobs, wages, national defense, morals.
The Bush administration has shown that they can be just as destructive in terms of job loss and reduction of “real” wages, botched national defense issues so their kids have just done their third tour of Iraq and are as immoral as the godddamn Democrats (see Larry Craig).
In short, these voters have the irate mien of someone who has been lied to repeatedly and are out for revenge.
I’d be willing to bet that no sitting Republican senator is returned in November and that there’s a supermajority of Dems in the House when the dust settles. It’s going to be a slaughter, especially if gas and food keep rising in price.
Tom
Comment by Brian on 23 April 2008 at 11:10 am:
NO sitting Republican senator? Jeff Sessions? Lindsey Graham? John Cornyn? They’re all getting tossed? As much as I would dance in the streets if you’re right, I feel I have to label that prediction as a little nuts.
Comment by tet on 23 April 2008 at 1:53 pm:
I admit it’s out there, Brian, but I think that you’re underestimating the far-reaching psychological effects of $4/gallon gas and $5/gallon diesel.
Make no mistake about it, unless Bush or Congress does something completely crazy like put in wage and price controls, we’re going to have those before the end of summer.
Bill’s right–it is the economy.
Tom