Cross-posted at Election Inspection
A while back, Poblano wrote about Barack Obama's advantage in states which have competitive Senate races. Except for a few exceptions (New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Texas), Obama has clearly done better in states with competitive senate races, but I'd like to focus on the caucus states with competitive senate elections. By the way, I'm not including New Mexico in this, simply because it's "caucus" was really just a primary.
Before I get to the nitty gritty, I want to address something about caucuses which Hillary Clinton and her supporters don't seem to understand. Caucuses are about party building, the reason why Obama's caucus victories are important is because many of these states are in places in which the Democratic party doesn't have a very good organization (Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, Texas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Alaska). Many of the other states are swing states which the Democrats are routinely competing for (Minnesota, Colorado, and Iowa). Caucuses are about party building, and those candidates who are strongly successful in caucuses are also building the Democratic party back up in those states. As such, it is my opinion that Obama's victories in these caucuses are more important than either Clinton's or Obama's victories in primaries (not that these primaries aren't important, mind you, just that caucuses are for the sake of electability)
First, the caucus states which everyone agrees are going to have competitive Senate elections (Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, and Alaska)
- Colorado - Obama +35
- Maine - Obama +19
- Minnesota - Obama +34
- Alaska - Obama +50
This averages out to Obama winning these states by an average of 34.5 (I understand that these are only state delegates, but I can only work with the information I have, and I must also assume that the popular vote, while not necessarily exactly like this, should be reasonably close to this). As you all know, Survey USA released a 50-state poll matching Clinton against Obama. So how does Obama match up against Clinton against McCain in these states with caucuses?
- Alaska - McCain beats Clinton by 22 points, but beats Obama by 5 (Obama +17)
- Colorado - McCain beats Clinton by 6 points, but loses to Obama by 9 (Obama +15)
- Maine - Clinton beats McCain by 6, while losing to Obama by 14 (Obama +8)
- Minnesota - Clinton beats McCain by 4 points, while Obama beats him by 7 (Obama +3) (to be fair, I think that Minnesota is likely a fluke, or does anyone believe that there is any circumstance where John McCain wins 28% of African Americans?)
According to this mark-up, Obama overperforms Clinton by an average of 10.75% against McCain in these caucus states. In addition, Obama turns Colorado into a blue state while Clinton keeps it red. So in three of these senate races, Barack Obama outperforms Hillary Clinton by a significant margin, that could be enough to put the senate races there over the top.
Now, let's take a nice look at how the Democrats do in the dark-horse states (Nebraska and Idaho)
First, the Caucus results
- Nebraska - Obama +36
- Idaho - Obama +62
Averaged out, Obama +49.
Now, let's look at the polling data:
- Idaho - McCain beats Clinton by 36 points, while he beats Obama by only 13 points (Obama +23)
- Nebraska - McCain beats Clinton by 27 points, while only beating Obama by only 3 points (Obama +24)
This averages to a 31.5% overperformance by Obama over Clinton. Yeah, I know that states like Nebraska and Idaho are almost certainly going to go with the Republicans, but both states have open seats, and numbers like may very well be the difference between making one of these seats turn in November. I'll do a look at the remaining caucus states later, because I believe this trend continues, even in the single caucus state he lost (Nevada), but for now, this actually looks like pretty good evidence that Barack Obama will definitely be helpful on the ticket for all of the competitive senate races.
(Side-note: Forgive the weird formating on this.)