Ohio: Though Obama has never led Clinton in the polls here, things are tightening. The demographics are more favorable to Clinton here than they were in Wisconsin, and I think she hangs on. It will likely not be by the margin she needs to make a serious comeback for the nomination. Four years ago John Edwards used the NAFTA issue in a similar way against John Kerry here, and it did not work for Edwards either. Kerry had not changed his mind on the subject as Clinton did, however.
Rhode Island: While being primaried by a conservative Republican in the last election cycle, Senator Lincoln Chafee said on national television that he had never voted for a Democrat in his life.
Though he was dissatisfied with George W. Bush, he wrote in his father in the 2004 election, so he could hold true to his tradition of never voting for Democrats. His statement of never voting for Democrats was likely a cynical ploy to hold the votes of Republican partisans in his primary given that he has now said he is likely to vote for Barack Obama in Tuesday’s primary. Evidently John McCain is both too liberal for Rush Limbaugh and too conservative for Lincoln Chafee. Chafee’s opinion notwithstanding, Rhode Island is very similar to Massachusetts politically except it is more downscale and tailor-made for Hillary Clinton.
Texas: Never kind to her husband in general elections, this may be the state that puts the nail in Hillary Clinton’s coffin. The polls are a statistical dead heat. There is talk of Hispanics being undersampled.
I don’t know whether there is truth to that. Some polling firms probably hire Hispanic telephone interviewers and others don’t. I don’t know how the automated polls handle that. Though the polls are close, the demographics of the state seem much more friendly to Clinton than Obama. She has won all but one of Texas’s border states, winning Oklahoma and Arkansas soundly, winning New Mexico barely, and losing Louisiana. Of this group of states, Louisiana is the one that least closely resembles Texas. I will predict Clinton wins Texas by the same numbers she won New Mexico. I have no idea how the delegate count will play out, but she needed to win Texas and Ohio by large margins to make a serious comeback. It is highly unlikely she will.
Vermont: Barack Obama is probably a little too conservative for this state. They would be more comfortable with Dennis Kucinich I think, but they will have to settle with the choices they have. However, Bernie Sanders is able to win here, and Obama’s voting record is more liberal than Sanders, so he should be acceptable enough. He also has the endorsement of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream who have created a new flavor in his honor called Cherries for Change. I’ve never liked cherries anyway.
Looking further into my crystal ball, I do not see a Huckabee upset anywhere Tuesday. Also, two 2008 Presidential candidates have primary challengers in their Congressional districts Tuesday. Ron Paul is being challenged in his Texas district by a pro-war Republican. Kucinich is being challenged in his district by another Democrat who says Kucinich is spending too much time running for President and not enough time serving his district. I predict Paul hangs on and Kucinich loses. Good riddance!
February 29th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Clarence, you are kind to Hillary with your predictions. I hope they come true.
Here are mine:
Rhode Island — Hillary by 10%
Vermont — Obama by 25%
Ohio — Hillary by 3%
Texas — Obama by 4%
Hillary stays in until Pennsylvania, but fails to blunt Obama’s momentum with a split decision. She needs 3 out of the 4 on Tuesday to make her case.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Kucinich is up big in the polls for his House seat. Unfortunately.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I hope you are right Clarence, Hillary and Obama need to keep beating each other up and spending all their money
February 29th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
MattC, it all depends whether the results follow the California model of showing a close race and Hillary doing better than expected or whether they follow the Wisconsin model where Obama does better than expected. It is tough to tell.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Clarence, don’t forget you also predicted that Clinton would win Wisconsin due to the “Bradley effect,” but Obama won by even more than the polls were showing, including winning white voters..
My guess?
OH
Clinton 52-Obama 46
TX
Obama 51-Clinton 48
RI
Clinton 55-Obama 43
VT
Obama 62-Clinton 35
Don’t think Huckabee breaks 40 anywhere.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I don’t know about Rhode Island. I was actually pretty surprised that Hillary won Massachusetts. I lived their for two years and if there’s a state with a bigger collection of upper income latte liberals, organic collectivist farmers, hippies, and college students, I haven’t heard of it. I think if the Massachusetts primary was held today, Obama would win in a walk.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I hope Paul hangs on. If he loses, that’s just more incentive for him to mount a quixotic independent bid in the general election. Although at this point, I’m wondering if Barry O. is sending signals that he’s going to do a massive flip on Iraq soon; in that scenario, an anti-war Paul might actually help draw away disaffected Democrats.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Won’t the media play it up if Hill wins OH and RI since they vote earlier? Everyone knows that Obama will win VT and TX won’t be in yet, so Hillary gets to dominate the early part of the news cycle
February 29th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I haven’t seen any data on it, but my guess is that Paul will lose the primary for his present seat, and will switch parties and run, for the 2nd time, on the Libertarian Party ticket. He would draw more votes from Obama than McCain, helping to elect McCain. The one good thing about McCain being the nominee is that it frames the election around the issue of national security, which is shaping up to be a net plus for the GOP.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
There have been reports of internal polling by both camps showing Paul losing. Don’t know if I believe it or not.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Matthew Miller, there are a number of latte liberals in Massachusetts (fewer in Rhode Island), but there is a sizeable number of lunch bucket liberals also. Not all of the state is like Cambridge. However, in general elections, both the latte liberals and the working class liberals vote equally Democratic, so we seldom see the contrast. The Legislature in Mass. may be more liberal now, but traditionally the Democratic caucus in the Massachusetts Legislature was far more moderate (especially on social issues) than the Democratic caucus in the New Hampshire Legislature. They used to have conservative Democrat Tom Finneran as House speaker.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I’m around a disproportionate number of young people in my travels, so I may be getting a clouded view, but I’m not sure that having the election be a referendum on national security benefits Republicans. Perhaps if it’s the broader issue of national security yes, but not if it’s about Iraq. Young people are almost unanimous in their opposition to the Iraq War, but on other issues like taxes or health care or immigration or even abortion, they are more evenly divided. Having the election be a referendum on Iraq would drive these people right in the arms of the Democrats. Young people are not the most reliable voters though, so that is a plus for McCain.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
As a graduate assistant I teach a class each semester.
I was demonstrating a concept in one class and it involved using a show of hands. So I asked by a show of hands how many of the students were planning on voting this year.
80% kept their hands down.
I suspect Obama has his rabid young supporters in the primary but won’t gain much support as he moves to the general election. He;s probably already tapped the goofy liberal youth vote.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Kucinich will not lose, he was leading by 25 points in a poll that was done on the race.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
On the Republican side, McCain has quietly creeped up to 1,014 delegates in the AP count. He now only needs 177 of the 259 available pledged delegates available on Tuesday to clinch the nomination – 68.3%.
He’ll do that easily. Under most reasonable scenarios for Vermont, Rhode Island and Ohio given current polling, McCain could clinch even if he wins less than half of Texas’ delegates. But it even looks like McCain will win a simple majority in Texas right now (which would give him all 41 of the statewide-allocated delegates and likely give him all 3 delegates in most of Texas’ 33 CDs as well).
March 1st, 2008 at 12:09 am
The estimate I did a couple days ago, which was conservative, had McCain at 1219 even if he falls just short of getting 50% in Texas. If he goes over 50%, which is likely, then he’ll be in the 1240-1250 range.