Pennsylvania Puts
Clinton In the Lead in Popular Vote, Obama leads in Caucuses
Hillary
Clinton has won the Pennsylvania Primary 1,259,466 to Barack
Obama’s 1,046,120 according to 100% complete
unofficial returns. This puts her in the
lead by 66,846 votes out of 31,147,324 cast so far. Clinton has 14,965,335 (48.05%) to Obama’s 14,898,489 (47.83%), a margin of 0.22%, with
neither candidate commanding a majority.
Technically, Clinton leads by 305,014 votes, almost 1%, but that is an
overstatement.
Interestingly,
the 31,147,324 Democratic primary votes thus far almost equals Hubert
Humphrey’s 31,274,503 votes in the 1968 General Election and, before it is over
in June, will certainly exceed the 34,221,344 votes received by John Fitzgerald
Kennedy when he won in 1960. In other
words, in any other time, this level of voter turnout would be considered a
general election.
The
mainstream media puts Obama ahead because Washington,
Florida and Michigan are included or not included in the vote tally. Washington, Florida and Michigan violated
Democratic party rules on the timing of their
primaries, so they are being punished by being denied delegates to the
convention. However, the voters who went
to the polls have a right to and expect to have their votes counted. The United States is not Zimbabwe, the 2000
selection of Bush notwithstanding. The
fact that Bush was selected by not counting all the votes is the major reason
the nation sits mired in war borne of external attack and economic difficulties. When the voters speak, it is a good idea to
listen.
Here
at the Institute of Election Analysis, every vote counts. What about Michigan where Obama
withdrew his name from the ballot?
Still, there was an election in Michigan. Clinton got 328,309 votes out of 594,408
ballots cast. In addition to Clinton,
Senators Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel and Representative Dennis Kucinich were on the
ballot. In addition, there was an
uncommitted slate of delegates that got 238,168 votes. Those votes were really mostly Obama supporters.
So, for the purpose of accurately assessing voter intent, we have
awarded Obama the 238,168 votes for the uncommitted
slate in Michigan. This is why Clinton’s
margin is only 66,846.
Is
this fair? The uncommitted slate in
Michigan received 40.06% of the vote.
Michigan abuts and is similar in population to Ohio and Pennsylvania,
both won by Clinton. Obama
received 44.00% of the vote in Ohio and 45.37% of the vote in
Pennsylvania. Even if all the Michigan
votes for Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel are added to Obama’s
total to give him the 44.77% non-Clinton vote, almost midway between the
Pennsylvania and Ohio results, Clinton still leads by a paper thin 38,915
(0.1%). The 2008 presidential election
will be close all the way to November and every vote will count.
The Caucus States
Eleven
of the 45 contests decided thus far have been caucuses. A caucus attendee is a voter, of course, but
they do not vote by secret ballot.
Caucusing involves going somewhere at a specific time and declaring, in
public, the candidate the caucus attendee supports. This eliminates a lot of people from going to
caucuses: people who have to work, people who vote absentee (about 5% to 10% in
normal elections), elderly people with mobility problems, people
with young children, etc.
The
caucus comes from New England and lives on in government as the town
meeting. The derivation of the word is
obscure but may come from the Algonkin word caucauasu which
appears in Captain Smith’s Virginia 23, as
Caw-cawaassough
meaning “one who advises, urges, encourages”, from a verb meaning primarily “to
talk to”, hence “to give counsel, advise, encourage” and “to urge, promote,
incite to action.”
The
modern meaning is, “A private meeting of the leaders or representatives of a
political party, previous to an election or to a general meeting of the party,
to select candidates for office or to concert other measures for the furthering
of party interests;” [From the Oxford
English Dictionary Online Second Edition 1989 http://dictionary.oed.com {Oxford provides a free word of the day
service by RSS feed, a great freebee for building vocabulary.}]
Consequently, the
turnout in caucuses is far, far lower than that in primaries, and primary
turnouts, even ones as high as those in 2008, are significantly lower than the
general election turnout. Many voters
refuse to vote in primaries because they must publicly reveal their party
affiliation. That is why the current
primary turnout is about half of what the General Election turnout will be in
November.
The
eleven caucus states, with 59 electoral votes, were decided by less than one
million Democratic voters. California,
with 55 electoral votes, was decided by 4,677,788.
Kerry
received 5,145,948 votes in the 11 caucus states in 2004, less than half a
million more than the primary vote in California this year. He lost 9 and carried 2. The total general election vote in those states
was 11,580,609. So, the Democratic
caucus turnout was less than 20% of the Democratic general election vote, and
less than 9% of the total vote. By
comparison, the Democratic primary vote in Pennsylvania was 77.6% of the
Democratic general election vote. In
other words, primaries, with their secret ballots and easier participation,
have a higher participation rate and are a much more accurate assessment of
people’s opinions than caucuses.
Caucuses favor highly motivated, younger, wealthier, better educated
voters with time on their hands.
Caucuses are really an eighteenth century mechanism that was democratic
and revolutionary for its time, but that has a distorting effect in the
twenty-first century’s high mobility, instant communication where time and
leisure are at a premium, unlike the days before electricity, cars and trains. The nominating power of every caucus
attendee is four to seven times more than the primary voter.
Seven of the eleven
caucus states are solidly Republican rural states and unlikely to vote for
either Obama or Clinton in November. Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, Kansas,
Idaho and Alaska, where Obama defeated Clinton by
wide margins, haven’t voted for a Democratic candidate for president since
Lyndon B. Johnson’s landslide in 1964, forty-four years ago. Colorado has voted Democratic only once since
then, in 1992. They are all in the West,
where John McCain comes from. Obama might carry Kansas for personal reasons. Minnesota and Maine were the only two caucus
states carried by Obama that regularly vote
Democratic in presidential elections.
Iowa is a toss-up and Nevada, a weak Democratic state, was won by
Clinton.
The Glass Ceiling
Why did Clinton do so poorly in caucus states, and why does she
do better in the polling booth than the last pre-election polls? Hillary Clinton is a controversial figure,
widely hated by many people, not just for herself, but because she is a
woman. Most of these Hillary haters are
men. Some of them are even married to
women who admire Hillary. Therefore
there are many women who support Hillary who would never say so in public. They certainly would not be able to take time
out of their lives to attend a caucus.
Obama, on the other hand,
suffers from the opposite. There are
plenty of people who say they are for Obama because
they want to be seen as liberal, politically correct or color blind who, in
their hearts, do not like black people.
So, Obama’s poll numbers may be inflated
compared to his actual performance in the voting booth. In caucus states like Wyoming, Nebraska,
Kansas, Idaho and North Dakota, that have almost no indigenous
African-Americans, young people especially can flock to caucuses for Obama as a kind of public political statement expressing
their lack of racial bias, in addition to their support for an articulate,
attractive, anti-war candidate.
These two factors
might explain the fact that Clinton runs at least 1% to 2% better than the
highest final poll number while Obama seems to slip
by the same percentage.
The Primary States
The story is the same
in the primary states. Obama carried South Carolina better than 2 to 1. South Carolina hasn’t voted Democratic in a
presidential race since John F. Kennedy in 1960, when the South was still
solidly Democratic. Utah and Virginia, Obama blowouts, haven’t voted Democratic in a presidential
election since 1964. Obama won Alabama and
Mississippi by wide margins. They
haven’t voted Democratic since 1976.
Obama did win some solidly
Democratic states: Delaware, Illinois, his home state,
Washington, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Hawaii, Wisconsin and Vermont.
Clinton, on the other
hand, won in big, Democratic leaning states essential to a Democratic victory
in November: like California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and
Pennsylvania.
Clinton also won some
weak Democratic states like: Arizona and Tennessee. Oklahoma is Clinton’s only victory in a state
that hasn’t voted Democratic for president since 1964.
The Electoral College
It is clear that whether Obama or Clinton
wins the nomination, the victor will have to choose the vanquished as
Vice-President if he or she has any hope of winning the election. Just as John Kennedy took Lyndon Johnson as
his running mate, Obama will have to take Clinton or
Clinton will have to take Obama if the Democrats want
to win.
If Obama wins the nomination, he will have
to win the election in the states where Clinton won the primaries. California,
Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania have a total of
161 electoral votes between them. Only
109 more are needed to reach the 270 are needed to win. Now add Obama’s
victories in traditional Democratic states like Illinois (21), Hawaii (4),
Wisconsin (10), Vermont (3), Minnesota (10), Connecticut (7), Washington (11),
Delaware (3) and Maine (4). That’s 73
electoral votes, still 36 short of victory.
Ok, let’s throw in some of Clinton’s victories: Michigan for another 17,
and Rhode Island 4. Now that leaves
15. Either Ohio or Texas would do the
trick, both won by Clinton.
Texas hasn’t voted for a Democrat for President since 1976, and Ohio
has voted for a losing candidate for president only twice since women won the
right to vote; in 1960 and 1944. So, if Obama can’t carry Ohio or Texas, where do the other 15 come
from?
So, it’s easy to see right now where the general election is going
to be fought. In the small states of New
Hampshire (4), Iowa (7), Arkansas (6), Louisiana (9), Kentucky (8), Oregon (7),
West Virginia (5), New Mexico (5) and Nevada (5), the perennial swing state of Missouri
(11), and the big states of Florida (27) and Ohio (20).
Like economics, the political landscape does not change radically
from year to year. Most of the states
that voted for Gore and Kerry will vote for Obama and
Clinton. Most of the states that voted
for Bush will vote for McCain.
The
Best Is Yet to Come
If
this analysis is correct, on May 6th, Obama
can be expected to do well in North Carolina, which hasn’t voted for a
Democratic candidate for President since 1976, and Indiana, which hasn’t voted for
a Democrat since 1964. If Clinton wins
Indiana, it will be her second state that hasn’t voted Democratic since 1964,
compared to eight for Obama. They each have a chance to pick up another
one in South Dakota on June 3rd.
That
will leave the subsequent round of primaries: West Virginia on May 13th,
and Kentucky and Oregon on May 20th to determine the Democratic
nominee and then, in November, the President of the United States. This is a very close race all around. The voters are playing their cards close to
their vests and doing a brilliant job.
Stay tuned.
Comparison
of Clinton and Obama Primary and Caucus results as of
April 30, 2008
|
Primaries |
Clinton |
Obama
|
Others |
Caucuses |
Clinton |
Obama |
Turnout |
Kerry |
|
|
NH- Dem |
112,215 |
104,772 |
67,081 |
Iowa |
68,576 |
86,863 |
1,521,966 |
741,898 |
|
|
NH Rep |
1,743 |
1,800 |
1,080 |
Nevada |
5,355 |
4,773 |
831,833 |
397,190 |
|
|
Michigan |
328,309 |
238,168 |
27,931 |
Alaska |
2,130 |
6,471 |
314,502 |
111,025 |
|
|
SC |
141,128 |
295,091 |
96,008 |
Colorado |
35,587 |
79,344 |
2,148,036 |
1,001,732 |
|
|
Alabama |
226,504 |
302,814 |
10,703 |
Idaho |
3,655 |
16,880 |
612,756 |
181,098 |
|
|
Florida |
857,208 |
569,041 |
299,015 |
Kansas |
9,462 |
27,172 |
1,213,108 |
434,993 |
|
|
Ct. |
164,831 |
179,349 |
6,328 |
Minn. |
68,442 |
141,527 |
2,842,912 |
1,445,014 |
|
|
Arizona |
229,501 |
193,126 |
29,260 |
ND |
6,948 |
11,625 |
316,049 |
111,052 |
|
|
Arkansas |
217,313 |
80,774 |
8,117 |
Neb. |
12,445 |
26,126 |
792,906 |
254,328 |
|
|
California |
2,421,995 |
1,997,749 |
258,044 |
Maine |
18,400 |
27,140 |
740,752 |
396,842 |
|
|
Delaware |
40,751 |
51,124 |
4,466 |
Wyoming |
3,312 |
5,378 |
245,789 |
70,776 |
|
|
Georgia |
328,129 |
700,366 |
26,336 |
||||||
|
Illinois |
662,845 |
1,301,954 |
51,317 |
234,312 |
433,299 |
667,612 |
11,580,609 |
5,145,948 |
|
|
Mass. |
704,591 |
511,887 |
30,293 |
||||||
|
Missouri |
395,287 |
405,284 |
19,564 |
35.10% |
64.90% |
||||
|
NJ |
602,576 |
492,186 |
25,006 |
||||||
|
NM |
73,105 |
71,396 |
4,239 |
|
|||||
|
NY |
1,003,623 |
697,914 |
47,296 |
||||||
|
Ok. |
228,425 |
130,087 |
54,682 |
||||||
|
Tenn. |
332,599 |
250,730 |
32,271 |
||||||
|
Utah |
48,719 |
70,373 |
5,147 |
||||||
|
La. |
136,959 |
220,588 |
26,801 |
||||||
|
Wa. |
315,222 |
353,563 |
21,481 |
||||||
|
DC |
27,326 |
85,534 |
589 |
||||||
|
Maryland |
285,440 |
464,474 |
8,869 |
||||||
|
Virginia |
347,579 |
623,479 |
8,492 |
||||||
|
Hawaii |
8,835 |
28,347 |
179
|
||||||
|
Wisconsin |
452,795 |
646,007 |
11,624 |
||||||
|
Ohio |
1,207,806 |
979,025 |
38,076 |
||||||
|
RI |
108,750 |
75,115 |
1,132 |
||||||
|
Texas |
1,478,434 |
1,382,703 |
49,855 |
||||||
|
Vermont |
59,640 |
91,740 |
2,962 |
||||||
|
Mississippi |
155,686 |
255,809 |
9,256 |
||||||
|
Pennsylvania |
1,259,466 |
1,046,120 |
- |
2,305,586 |
54.627% |
||||
|
14,965,335 |
14,898,489 |
1,283,500 |
31,147,324 |
||||||
|
48.05% |
47.83% |
4.12% |
|||||||
|
Differenc |
(66,846) |
||||||||
|
|