Legal Commentary

Media Misses the Electoral Map Issues

By Jeralyn

MSNBC just did an electoral vote segment. They made some critical errors.

They assumed Obama would take PA because John Kerry did. Barack Obama did poorly in PA, like he did in Ohio, with rural and blue collar voters. It's more likely in my view that the Democrats will lose Ohio and PA if Obama is the nominee. Hillary has a better chance of keeping PA and winning back Ohio.

They gave no thought to Florida going Democratic in November. They assumed it will go to McCain. Hillary puts Florida in play.

Their silliest comments were that Obama could make the southern states competitive because of the large African-American turnout. Not that he would win them, just make them competitive and make Republicans nervous. But when you're talking about the electoral map, coming close doesn't count. If the Democratic nominee doesn't win the popular vote in those states, the Republican candidate gets the electoral vote.

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They posit that if Obama wins Colorado and Iowa, it could make up for losing Ohio. Again, that calculation gave Obama PA, and it's unlikely he'll win that state.

I don't see Obama winning Colorado. Should McCain pick Romney, it's even more of a long shot since Romney crushed McCain in the Colorado caucuses. No matter, all the small western states, even adding in the midwestern Iowa, doesn't make up for losing states like PA, Ohio, FL and Michigan.

The funniest thing was when they said Obama might take Indiana in November. The last Democrat to win Indiana was in 1964.

Another factor: Democrats have been losing voters in recent elections among four key constituencies: older voters, female voters, Catholic voters and Hispanic/Latino voters. Hillary is stronger with those groups.

My electoral calculations are here.

There are 15 solidly Democratic states that will go Democratic regardless of whether the candidate is Hillary or Obama.

There are 17 battleground states, broken down as follows:

• 11 that have tended to go Republican in recent elections. (Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia). Together they have 114 electoral votes.

• 6 that have been more likely to go Democratic in recent elections. (Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.) Together they have 76 electoral votes.

Now that North Carolina and West Virginia have been decided, I call it:

Hillary 317
Obama 265, tops
Needed to win: 270

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 14, 2008 (boomark / email).