The last couple of days have been notable as the first real engagement between Barack Obama and John McCain. It might be spring training, but these guys are at least playing baseball:
The conventional wisdom on Hardball right now is that this is great news for Barack Obama. And I thought his remarks were effective today. But this could also be a case where Obama is on the right side of the wrong argument. For one thing, I think there is a bigger gap between the knowledge base of the pundit class and the public on non-Iraq foreign policy than there is on any other issue. We've seen that the public can handle fairly sophisticated debates on the gas tax and a health care mandate, but the intricacies of Hamas and Neville Chamberlain may test their patience. For another, Rasmussen polling indicates that national security is one area where McCain starts out with a big credibility/trust advantage against Barack Obama.
I'll say this: I think this is one time when it's going to be worth looking at the national tracking polls over the course of the next week or so. If Obama gets some kind of bounce out of this -- on what should be McCain's firmest ground -- then McCain could be in a great deal of trouble. If, on the other hand, the polling shows a shift toward McCain, we know that the Republicans will be pressing this issue from now until November, and Obama might need to think more seriously about a VP selection like Sam Nunn or Wesley Clark.
Friday, May 16, 2008
War Games?
Today's Polls, 5/16
You know it's a different kind of election season when you're having an easier time getting polling data for Alaska than for Michigan:
The headline today is that for the first time since we started tracking the state polls in early March, we are now rating Hillary Clinton as a favorite against John McCain. One of the big reasons why is that she is starting to consolidate her positions in blue states like Maine and Washington that previously looked like they might be somewhat vulnerable. What she needs now are some better numbers in Michigan and Wisconsin; if she gets those, her win percentage will go way up.
Barack Obama is also polling quite strongly in blue states recently. However, he appears to be backtracking somewhat in red states like Kansas. This is undoubtedly fairly typical for this point in the election cycle, when support begins to revert toward being more partisan. But the reason why we don't yet show Obama getting a surge in his electoral math even as he has improved his standing in national polls is because we haven't gotten a lot of data from key purple states recently, and what data we have gotten -- as in Wisconsin and New Hampshire -- has not been especially good for him.
There should be a lot of polling coming out next week, notably including SurveyUSA's monthly refresh of data in 15 or 16 states, so we should have a better idea by then.
Gay rights issues present opportunities for both candidates
The Wall Street Journal suggests that yesterday's California Supreme Court ruling to require recognition of same-sex marriages is a gift to McCain and the Republicans. However, the reality of the issue is more complicated.
Firstly, the conventional wisdom that gay marriage was a critical issue in allowing George W. Bush to win the 2004 election is dubious at best. Academic analyses suggest that, while turnout was higher in states with gay marriage ballot initiatives in 2004, George Bush performed no better in those states than he had in 2000.
Moreover, gay marriage questions may be particularly irrelevant given the nature of Barack Obama's and John McCain's constituencies. Support for gay marriage and other gay rights initiatives is strongly aged-based, with younger Americans being far more tolerant. But younger Americans are more inclined to support Obama to begin with, and older Americans less so; the demographics are running along parallel rather than perpendicular tracks. Meanwhile, while civil unions are strongly opposed by evangelical Protestants, they are supported by majorities of Catholics and strong majorities of mainline Protestants. Once again, this tends to match the existing fractures in each candidate's base of support, as Obama does especially poorly with evangelicals but quite strongly with mainline Protestants, with Catholics somewhere in between. In a Clinton-McCain match-up, gay rights issues would have had far more potential to create a "wedge", as Clinton does pick up strong support from older voters and some support from white evangelicals.
There as many as eight distinct policy questions related to gay marriage and gay rights that are likely to receive some play this year. I have summarized those questions below, including each candidate's position on the issue. I have also included data from PollingReport.com on public sentiment on each issue. Because some of these issues are fairly nuanced, and the responses depend heavily on question wording, I have provided an approximate range rather than a precise value for each question.
McCain's reputation as a moderate on gay rights issues rests on his opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have amended the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Obama also opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, as do majorities of the public in most surveys.
Although neither candidate supports federal recognition of gay marriages (Obama's opposition has at times been tentative), Obama supports civil unions whereas McCain does not. On this issue, Obama stands with the majority of the public, although this is one instance in which opposition tends to be voiced more strongly than the support.
McCain's best opportunity to win support on the gay marriage issue is to shift the discourse from the relatively unpopular Federal Marriage Amendment to the Defense of Marriage Act, which (i) prevents states from having to recognize gay marriages in other states and (ii) prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay marriages conducted by the states. DOMA is likely to receive renewed attention in the wake of the California decision, as California law would permit gay couples to travel to California to get married there, whereas Massachusetts (the only other state to allow gay marriage) does not. While McCain voted for DOMA continues to support it, Obama has advocated its repeal.
Polling on DOMA is murky because it represents a fairly complicated legal question, making it hard to phrase a survey item appropriately. However, a May 2005 University of New Hampshire poll suggested that a 50-46 plurality opposed Massachusetts marriages from having to be recognized in all 50 states. Moreover, McCain's position is probably easier to frame, as he can defend DOMA on federalism and judicial activism grounds. The attack ads -- "Barack Obama has called for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act and would force [insert state here] to recognize gay marriages conducted in San Francisco" -- are easy enough to envision.
However, Obama has a couple of ways that he can pivot on gay rights issues. The first way would be to portray the issue as a distraction and representative of the "old" kind of politics. While public opinion on gay rights issues is mixed, there is no indication that it is a particularly high priority for the public, particularly at a time of war and economic distress.
Moreover, there are three issues -- unrelated to the marriage issue itself -- where Obama's position rather than McCain's is much more in line with public sentiment. The first is gay service in the military and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy; depending on the phrasing of the question, anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of the public supports allowing gays to serve openly in the military. The second is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. A recent Gallup poll suggested at an overwhelming 89 percent majority of Americans support equal rights for gays and lesbians in the workplace, but McCain is on record as opposing ENDA. And the third issue is including sexual orientation as a category in federal hate crimes statutes -- supported by 70-75 percent of the public but opposed by McCain.
An Obama counterargument would probably take the following form:
"At a time when our nation is at war and our economy is in recession, my opponent is trying to distract you with the same old politics of fear and division. And he supports policies that make it impossible for gay Americans to join the military at a time when we don't have enough troops, and make it harder for them to find jobs when too many people are out of work."
As on the gas tax issue, Obama's counter-punches could prove to be more powerful than any jabs thrown by McCain.
Meanwhile, on Planet Obama...
The Obama campaign website has a very particular method about the way that it counts pledged delegates:
Yesterday, the Obama website showed him as needing 25 delegates to win a pledged delegate majority, whereas today it shows 24. The difference comes because Obama gained one delegate in North Carolina when that state certified its results.
But the Obama website is not counting former John Edwards delegates, even though eight of them have now declared their intentions to do their delegating for Obama. Nor is it counting the Maryland pledged delegate who flipped from Clinton to Obama.
True, the Obama campaign has the luxury not to sweat the small stuff; they will meet their definition of a pledged delegate majority on Tuesday with or without the Edwards delegates. Still, they are intentionally glossing over the fact that delegates aren't bound by rule to vote for any particular candidate. Their working definition of a "pledged delegate" is something like: a delegate as selected at their state convention
EDIT: Well ... maybe never mind all that, since the Obama campaign does seem to be counting the Edwards delegates in its communications to the media. But not, so far, to the public at large.
But Dukakis won West Virginia
Just because the Clintons say something doesn’t mean it’s untrue. Hillary’s claim that she would do better against John McCain in swing states such as West Virginia — no Democrat has captured the White House without winning there since 1916 — is quite plausible. Obama is in danger of being cast as the Michael Dukakis of the 21st century (fairly or not). Polls show that in West Virginia, Obama wins only 53 percent of Democratic primary voters in a matchup against McCain. When only half of the party base is willing to vote for the nominee against a Republican, that nominee and that party have real problems.Goldberg has something of a point. West Virginia very much is an electoral advantage to Clinton. Although the general election matchups in the state have not been polled in a long time, we have Clinton winning the state against McCain whereas Obama is way behind. It along with Arkansas are the two states where Clinton has the largest inherent advantage against Barack Obama.
The irony is that Dukakis -- the nerdy, Willie Horton-releasing technocrat from Massachusetts -- actually carried West Virginia by 5 points. And lost the election by 315 electoral votes.
Arguably the fundamental change in American partisan politics over the past 30 years is that the Democrats have gone from being the party of the working class to the party of the bourgeoisie. Jimmy Carter's coalition was built on folks who did not attend college -- but Ford beat him by 10 points among college graduates, and Reagan beat him by 16 four years later. The same pattens largely held for Michael Dukakis.
Clinton -- Bill Clinton -- captured the best of both worlds. He performed well among those voters who hadn't attended college as well as among those with postgraduate educations. But by the time we got through the rabbit hole to John Kerry in 2004, the coalitions had flipped. Kerry was still carrying the postgraduate crowd, but had lost the "no college" voters.
These effects are particularly noticeable in West Virginia, which is among the least-educated states in the country. Indeed, Thomas Frank's book should really be entitled "What's the Matter with West Virginia?"
Hillary Clinton's issue is that she rolls the clock a little too far back - not to the Clinton years but to the Carter years. She wins back the low-education voters that Kerry had lost -- and hence, she wins back West Virginia. But, as of about a month ago, she was actualy losing college graduates to McCain. Hence, well-educated states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Virginia, Colorado, and Oregon give her challenges. McCain has even been within a couple of points of her in some polls of Connecticut. Each Democrat would face challenges in building a winning coalition, and it is not intrinsically obvious which one is greater.
p.s. As long as we're talking about the National Review and Michael Dukakis, I've been looking for an excuse to present the following:
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Today's Polls, 5/15
In Iowa, Rasmussen has Barack Obama beating John McCain by 2 points, and Hillary Clinton trailing McCain by 3 points. Obama's result is consistent with previous Rasmussen polling of the state, whereas Clinton's position has significantly improved.
In Arkansas, it's Clinton +14 and Obama -24 against McCain. That's one of the more dramatic differences you're likely to see in any given state. Rasmussen is now in line with other polls in Arkansas, which show Clinton with a safe-looking lead in the state; she had actually trailed by 7 in Rasmussen's previous poll. Believe it or not, this is also an improvement for Obama from Rasmussen's last poll of Arkansas, which had him down by 29.
In Washington, SurveyUSA has Obama +12 and Clinton +4. McCain has made some nosies about wanting to compete in the Pacific Northwest region. That might be a decent idea against Clinton, but it's a poor one against Obama, who runs very strongly in the Pac Northwest.
Finally, we've figured out how to accommodate yesterday's Georgia poll, which showed Obama trailing by 14 and did not poll the Clinton matchup. Clinton's result will be listed as "no poll" in our tables and the result will not affect her averages.
Among working class whites, Clinton kicked Edwards' ass too
It seems to be taken for granted that John Edwards had some stranglehold on the working class white vote. But this was not really the case. The working class vote was not a particular strength of John Edwards in either relative or absolute terms.
Following is a summary of some key exit polling metrics from among the five states in which John Edwards competed (using the term 'competed' liberally in the case of Florida).
A couple of things to call your attention to.
Firstly, John Edwards actually performed slightly better among voters making more than $50,000 per year than among those making less.
Secondly, while we only have this data available in three states, there was no real difference in the education levels of Edwards supporters.
Thirdly, in every state where we have data available, Barack Obama performed significantly better than Edwards among voters making less than $50,000 per year, and among voters who did not attend college. This held true in racially mixed states like Florida, as well as extremely white states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
Fourthly, in every state where we have data available, Hillary Clinton performed significantly better than Edwards among voters making less than $50,000 per year, and among voters who did not attend college.
*-*
To the extent that Edwards had a demographic base, it was not determined by class lines but rather by geography: Edwards performed better in rural areas than he did in the suburbs, and better in suburbs than he did in the cities. But really, John Edwards didn't quite have a base: there was no commonly-identified demographic group amongst which he had a plurality, yet alone a majority of the Democratic vote.
This is not to disparage John Edwards. He had the misfortune of running against two All-Star level candidates who would probably have had the stage to themselves in any other year. To the extent he had a strength, it was among rural voters, and that could be helpful to Barack Obama in Kentucky, which among other things is quite rural.
But it sort of throws cold water on the notion that there's something about Barack Obama -- and particularly something about Barack Obama's race -- that makes working-class whites loathe to support him. (True, Obama performs poorly among certain types of working-class whites, like those in Appalachia and in much of the South. But he's doing just fine in Oregon, which is also full of working-class whites.) Rather, it's more likely that there's something about Hillary Clinton that makes these voters want to support her.
There is no absolute measuring stick against which to gauge a candidate's performance with a particular demographic. If Hillary Clinton had run against John F. Kennedy, she would have gotten her ass kicked among New England Catholics. Does that mean that Hillary Clinton would have had a Catholic problem?
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Delegate Scenarios, Edwards Edition
As DemConWatch explains, we can't automatically assume that John Edwards' delegates belong to Barack Obama. Instead, they have become something more akin to superdelegates. But I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of them will in fact follow their candidate's lead and commit to Barack Obama. 1) A big, big win in Kentucky next Tuesday. Ideally, Obama should be limited to no more than 100 votes. 2) Oregon, scheduled for the same day, inexplicably breaks off and sinks into the Pacific Ocean. 3) Puerto Rico, clocking in on June 1, not only gives Clinton a huge majority, but also manages to become a state in advance of the vote. 4) Finally, on June 3 as the South Dakota polls open, Thomas Jefferson’s head on Mount Rushmore comes to life and starts shouting, “You go, girl.” An ambitious scenario, true. But nothing less than we’ve come to expect from the most hard-working political family in American history.
One upshot of this is that Obama appears to be on track to clinch a pledged delegate majority next Tuesday under all credible Michigan/Florida scenarios:
The worst of these scenarios for Obama is Scenario D -- Michigan and Florida are seated fully, with Obama getting Michigan's uncommitted delegates. Under this scenario, Obama needs 60 pledged delegates to clinch, whereas he projects to pick up about 47 in next Tuesday's primaries. So, that would leave him 13 short. But, he'd only need to pick up 13 of the 32 Edwards delegates between now and then to make up the difference -- remember, the number of Edwards delegates goes up if we count Florida. Four of those 32 Edwards delegates are effectively off the table, since they're tied up at the Iowa state conventions, but picking up 13 of the remaining 28 -- fewer than half -- would seem to be a given.
What about an overall pledged delegate majority? Let's make a couple of assumptions here. Firstly, let's say that my pledged delegate projections in the table above are correct, and that Obama adds 88 pledged delegates from this point onward (and Clinton gets 101). Secondly, let's assign 13 of the 19 Edwards delegates to Obama, 2 to Clinton, and leave his 4 Iowa delegates uncommitted. Thirdly, lets assign the 43 remaining add-on delegates (excluding Michigan) to the candidate who won their state; that would mean 25 delegates for Obama and 18 for Clinton.Current Pledged Delegates 1602
By this math, Obama presently has 1889.5 pledged delegates, and projects to have 2015.5 in mid-June, by the time the primaries are completed and after all add-on delegates are selected. That would leave him just 9.5 superdelegates short of a clinch. He might pick up that many by Friday.
Current Superdelegates 287.5
------------------------------------
Current Total 1889.5
Projected Pledged Delegates 88
Projected Edwards Delegates 13
Projected Add-On Delegates 25
-----------------------------------
Projected June Total 2015.5
Needed to Win 2025
Magic Number 9.5
Superdelegates Outstanding* 192
Percent Needed to Clinch 5%
* Excluding Add-Ons
What about if Florida and Michigan are seated? Let's take Obama's worst Florida/Michigan scenario, Scenario D, and also assume that Florida and Michigan superdelegates get a full vote. This puts 13 additional Edwards delegates on the table; we'll assign 10 more of those to Obama and the other 3 to Clinton.Current Pledged Delegates 1602
Under this scenario, Obama presently has 2019.5 total delegates, and projects to get up to 2155.5 between his share of the Edwards delegates, the add-ons, and the remaining elected delegates. That would leave him 53.5 superdelegates short of the 2209 he'd need to clinch. If Florida and Michigan are included, there are 224 outstanding superdelegates, not counting add-ons, meaning that Obama needs about 25 percent of the remaining total.
Current Superdelegates 287.5
FL/MI Pledged Delegates 122
FL/MI Superdelegates 8
------------------------------------
Current Total 2019.5
Projected Pledged Delegates 88
Projected Edwards Delegates 23
Projected Add-On Delegates 25
-----------------------------------
Projected June Total 2155.5
Needed to Win 2209
Magic Number 53.5
Superdelegates Outstanding* 224
Percent Needed to Clinch 24%
* Excluding Add-Ons
Let's reiterate the most important numbers. If the Edwards delegates, the add-ons, and the remaining pledged delegates fall reasonably in line with expectations:
Obama needs only about 10 more superdelegates to clinch if Florida and Michigan are not seated.
Obama needs only about 55 more superdelegates to endorse him -- about a quarter of the remaining total -- if Florida and Michigan are fully seated according to Clinton's wishes.
Only a DEFCON 1 type of meltdown will prevent Obama from getting the nomination at this point.
EDIT: Or, if you prefer, there is Gail Collins' scenario:Given the Democratic Party’s innovative method of doling out delegates, all that’s necessary for her to snatch the nomination is:
Multiple Choice
Team Obama touts a big endorsement at 7 PM. The endorsement is:
a. John Edwards
b. Al Gore
c. Roger Clinton
d. A cheap way to buy out a media cycle
More seriously, I figure the pecking order looks something like this:
1. Hillary Clinton
2. Al Gore
3. Colin Powell
4. John Edwards
5. Prominent Senator or Governor who had endorsed Clinton
6. AFL-CIO
7. Chuck Hagel
8. (tie). Nancy Pelosi and Jimmy Carter*
9. Jim Webb
10. (tie) Brian Schweitzer and Steve Beshear
* Points deducted because of their tacit endorsements already.
Keep in mind that the last two times the Obama campaign teased a "big" endorsement, they turned out to be Lincoln Chafee and Joe Andrew, who would rank about 493rd and 88th on this list respectively.
EDIT: I have no idea whether it's John Edwards. But remember the two contradictory viewpoints that I expressed last night. On the one hand, the Obama campaign knows that the 48 hours following West Virginia were going to be the most vulnerable time in the remainder of the primary cycle for them. So it would be a good time to hijack a media cycle. But, on the other hand, it would be a little awkward to roll out an "in your face" sort of endorsement the day after Clinton won a primary by 40 points. If, I don't know, Dianne Feinstein flipped to Obama, that might trigger exactly the opposite of its intended effect amongst her supporters (see also: the NARAL endorsement). So what you're going for is awe rather than shock.
John Edwards is perhaps the only name that can deliver awe without shock. And that's because, if you look at his appearances on Morning Joe and Larry King Live, he's been softening the ground on a potential Obama endorsement for about a week now. And he deferred to Clinton until after the North Carolina primary and Obama won that primary. It's an endorsement that would gather lots of headlines, but that wouldn't give the appearance of being hasty or presumptuous.
A landmark, of sorts
Strategic Vision releases a Georgia poll that has a McCain-Obama matchup listed (Obama trails by 14) -- but not McCain-Clinton.
EDIT: I have to do some reprogramming since the macros that generate the charts and graphs aren't set up to deal with a situation where just one candidate gets polled. So, there might be a delay in getting this poll integrated into the averages. But we'll keep running Clinton numbers until/unless she withdraws.
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