The Big State Fallacy.

“Yet for all of her primary night celebrations in the populous states, exit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind.” Are the media finally going after the Clinton camp’s last, sad buttress? In tomorrow’s NYT, Patrick Healy pushes back against the dubious Clinton claim that she’ll run better in the “big states” based on the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries. “According to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls on Tuesday, Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones — just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries. And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republicans in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women.” In other words, when it comes to comparing primary and general election performance, we’re basically talking apples and oranges. (Just ask Al Gore.)

One thought on “The Big State Fallacy.”

  1. courtesy of Kos:

    * More Democratic states are at risk with Clinton. In the “barely Dem” category, Clinton has double the electoral votes (EV) — 117 to 58. What’s more, the “tied” state — Wisconsin, is a Blue state. So with Clinton, we have 127 EVs that are in weak hands.

    With Obama, however, we have only 58 “barely Dem” EVs, and the tied states, North Carolina, is a Red state.

    * Obama puts more pressure on McCain states: With Obama, McCain has 76 “barely GOP” EVs compared to 13 against Clinton. Put another way, best case scenario where our candidates take all the states in their column and “barely GOP” columns, Obama ends up with 360 EVs, while Clinton would get 312. Obama has far higher ceiling.

    * Obama Holds the Kerry states better: This is related to the “base states” stuff above. The only Kerry state Obama currently loses is New Hampshire. On the other hand, Clinton loses Michigan, New Hampshire, and ties in Wisconsin. Furthermore, Obama has three Kerry states in the “barely” category — Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Clinton has six — Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Hawaii. That means that Clinton is losing or barely holding on to 9 Kerry states (out of 19), compared to four for Obama.

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