Legal Commentary

Political Demography: Ohio

By Big Tent Democrat

The SUSA Ohio poll, which has Obama up 4, 49-45, gives us another chance to do a demographic analysis.

SUSA has Obama winning African Americans (projected to be 11% of the electorate, up 1% from 2004) by 84-12. As usual, SUSA seems to understate Obama's A-A support. At worst, Obama will win 90% of the A-A vote. (Yes, I know Bush is said to have won 16% of the A-A vote in 2004, that is meaningless imo.) More . . .

Among whites (projected to be 86% of the Ohio electorate by SUSA, same as in 2004), Obama wins 44% according to SUSA to McCain's 50. In 2004, Kerry won 44% of the white vote. In the 2008 Ohio Dem primary, Obama won 34% of the white vote. I think McCain's best case scenario is he wins 55% of the white vote in Ohio. So what's the result if that happens? The white vote would get McCain to 47.3% of the vote. 10% of the A-A vote gets him 1.1% for 48.4% Latinos, Asians and other make up the other 5% of the electorate. McCain needs 32% of that total. In 2004, Kerry beat Bush by 2-1 among Latinos in Ohio. If that projects to the final 5% here, we are looking at a virtual tie.

In my view, this is McCain's BEST possible result. But it is not the likely result. I expect A-A turnout to be higher than SUSA projects and I suspect Obama will do better with Latinos and Asians in Ohio than Kerry did. I also expect Obama to do better among whites than Kerry did. Why? Because Obama will do much better with white women than Kerry did. Kerry lost white women by 10 to Bush. Obama will do no worse than split white women with McCain.

In short, I expect Ohio to be in Obama's column. and by a 4-5 point margin.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).