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Barack Obama Will Beat Hillary Clinton In The Pennsylvania Democratic Primary
04/22/2008 Barack Obama will win the Pennsylvania primary tonight. That's right, I said will. Now before you accuse me of drinking whatever kool-aid Obama's been selling (although I do hear it is mighty fine kool-aid) let me explain what I mean by win. As a recent President put it, this is not an attempt to parse what the definition of the word "is, is." (A President who's also accused Obama of playing the race card, to which I'd love to hear his campaign say, "Play the card? Have you taken a look at him? We are the card"). The only people who matter anymore are superdelegates. We can tell ourselves otherwise and hold out hope that either there's an earthquake and Barack gets swallowed up or that Clinton comes to her senses regarding the pledged delegates and admits defeat, but I think they're about equal on the unlikeliness scale. So what do I mean by win? I mean two things. 1. I think there is a puncher's chance that Obama wins the Pennsylvania primary outright. This would pretty much simultaneously end the Democratic race as the only argument Hillary would have left would be that she's a Clinton and, dammit, she's deserved this ever since she graduated Wellesley. Oh, and there was that Lewinsky thing. And that she claimed New York residency so as to become the junior senator of arguably the most important state in our country. And for the love of god, she did do an interview with Olbermann, that's got to count for something, right? 2. More likely, I think Obama loses Pennsylvania, but by a margin that was unthinkable even three weeks ago. I'd put the over/under at 6.5 points and take the under. Obama should stay within 6 points of Clinton regardless of how bad it goes for him. How can I make such an outrageous statement? As far as winning outright goes (and I'll admit this is a bit of a longshot) I think two things work in his favor that people aren't thinking about - newly registered voters and undecideds. Look at the polls: most have him down something like 50-44. This means he's losing by six, but it also means that something like 6% are undecided. If you read most of the pundits, they seem to think this means that they'll swing toward Hillary. After all, that's what's happened in the past. I think differently. Anecdotally, (I have no hard evidence on this question) it seems as if undecideds have tended to go toward the underdog, not the frontrunner. Think about it - if you're undecided right now is it really because you can't bring yourself to vote for Hillary? Hillary has been known for years, her campaign has been focusing on Pennsylvania for what seems nearly as long, and she has been the favorite the entire time. People don't tend to waffle when they're following the crowd, they waffle when they are thinking about bucking the trend, and voting for Obama in Pennsylvania is definitely bucking the perceived trend. Newly registered voters are the other part. Something like 156,000 new Democratic voters will vote in this election for the first time. Typically, and logically, Obama has done particularly well in these demographics as they tend to be the most energized, usually the young and educated and those groups who felt they didn't have a stake in previous elections; e.g., African-Americans. If he wins this group by 20-25%, which is not unreasonable, he gains about 2 points overall, presuming the expected about 2 million go out and vote tonight. So between undecideds and newly registered Obama could conceivably pick up 2-3% points the polls aren't getting. Plus, African-American votes tend to be undercounted in polling data and, as one pundit pointed out on Sunday morning, "How do you poll people who don't have a landline?" If you just have a cellphone or VOIP (if you don't know what it stands for, don't worry, I don't either), who do you think you're going to be more likely to support, Obama or Clinton? One last point deserves mentioning - turnout. The higher turnout is, the better I think it is for Obama. Clinton may certainly benefit as well, but I think that higher turnout means that groups that historically don't vote as regularly are out in force - African-Americans, the young, suburbanites - groups that typically swing toward Obama. I don't have the swagger to pick the ultimate upset, but I will say that my gut feeling tells me that this could be 51-49 or 52-48 once the final count is made. And I can't shake the feeling that it might be 51-49 the unexpected way (i.e., Obama in a massive upset). At the very least, tonight should be entertaining. I don't expect NBC or CNN are going to be able to call this one the second the polls close. Comments [post a comment]
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
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