Obama’s Democrat Problem, Continued
Posted on March 1st, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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To follow up on the very popular Obama post below, it’s worth noting that Rasmussen state-by-state polling also shows Democratic defections from an Obama-led ticket, either to McCain or to a third party. According to Rasmussen, in Iowa, where it all began, Obama runs three points ahead of McCain right now, but 11% want “some other candidate.” Among Democrats, he receives only 75% with 10% backing McCain and 13% opting for “some other candidate.” There is potentially more space than usual for an independent or third-party candidate in this election rather than less. In Iowa Obama’s problem does seem to be concentrated most among liberals, 14% of whom opted for “some other candidate” and 10% of whom chose McCain. McCain’s weakness with the right could have been and was predicted, but Obama’s weakness with the left will probably come as a surprise to those who have not been following the campaign extremely closely. McCain has his share of problems in Iowa, too, since he gets only 68% of conservatives, losing 18 to Obama and 10 to “some other candidate.”
Surely, New Hampshire is better for Obama, since he leads by a much wider margin, right? Well, yes and no. Obviously, New Hampshire has been trending Democratic for the last several years, and he has strong support from independents, but even here he draws just 78% of Democrats and 79% of liberals. What gives him such a commanding lead is the pathetic level of support McCain gets from conservatives (60%) and Republicans (64%). For a while I have been thinking of an Obama v. McCain race as a “race to the bottom,” but couldn’t really put my finger on why this phrase kept occurring to me. Now I think I have it: both party bases seem remarkably dissatisfied (the Republican more volubly so), and the winner will be the one whose base is least dispirited and disaffected from the nominee.
I have already discussed the amazing extent of Democratic defections in New Mexico that make the race there a dead-heat between McCain and Obama. Next, consider Ohio, where McCain was essentially tied with Obama 42-41 (9% opting for another candidate) as of last week. Ohio was one of the great slaughterhouses of Republican candidates in ‘06 and was presumed to be trending strongly Democratic. I cannot find crosstabs for this poll. A 2/24 Wisconsin poll shows Obama and McCain essentially tied 44-43, and Obama again gets 76% of Democrats and just 70% of liberals. And these are all states that Rasmussen describes as “leaning Democratic.” The pattern appears again in Nevada, where Obama leads McCain by 12 but gets just 72% of Democrats. It’s the same for Pennsylvania, where Obama holds a wide lead by virtue of McCain’s even larger problems with his own party but only gets 72% of Democrats.
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5 Responses to “Obama’s Democrat Problem, Continued”
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Why is a bad thing that the extremes of the parties seem to have less control of the nomination process? This seems to be to be actually a good sign for democracy in the US. Both Obama and McCain have moved more to the center (although they cannot be considered interchangeable in their views) and that has alienated the extremes. The reality is that the polarization has meant that not much is getting done in Washington. If either McCain or Obama can turn their centrist moves into real bi-particianship, the country will reward them heavily. Right now they are being rewarded for rhetoric.
While still preliminary, my electoral map has both Florida, which you omitted, and Ohio going to McCain. I’m not so sure it is liberalism per se that is the turnoff point so much as the elderly Dems seem to have a decent affinity for McCain. I will be curious to see the extent that the old feminists withhold their support for Obama. I imagine the number is as high as it will ever be and will go down. Outside those to factors, I’m not sure what the liberal unattractiveness of Obama is. Of course elderly voters aren’t a demographic one can just sweep under the rug.
A few random thoughts on this …
(1) I think there are reasons why both McCain and Obama can expect most of the current defectors to rally around the candidates, for many of the same reasons, but I think there are some asymmetries which favor Obama in this regard. The Democratic dissentors don’t seem to loath him the way many of the Republican dissenters loath McCain; moreover, as you and some of your commenters pointed out in a previous post, the fact that the Democratic race is still ongoing in a way that the Republican race is not may be artificially hurting Obama’s numbers among Dems.
(2) I can see three reasons for the “surprising” defections among liberals. One, the voters may be more aware than you think of his real foreign policy views; on the one hand, his fans like that policy just fine, as I have argued elsewhere, on the other hand, many anti-interventionists on the left may be skeptical of his candidacy for that same reason. Moreover, while he has a more liberal voting record than Clinton, he has, on most issues, run slightly to Clinton’s right during the campaign. Finally, of course, the very “work together,” post partisan rhetoric that moderates love (at least currently) is hated by many on the left. However, absent a credible (e.g., not Nader) anit-war third party candidate, most of these people will likely come back to Obama.
(3) Finally, somewhat orthogonally to this post, but on the larger topic of who is likely to win this fall, I’m increasingly convinced that Obama has the edge. McCain will put his foot in his mouth on a regular basis during the campaign, and it will start to hurt him (arguably it already has). I also tend to think that McCain will have a somewhat harder time of walking the tightrope between mollifying the base and not alienating moderates. Finally, Obama does have some unusually enthusiastic constituencies, which can reasonably be expected to turn out in unusually high numbers. The only such constituency enjoyed by McCain is the press (granted, significant in its own way).
(4) On the other hand, I think you have to conclude that at least some of the Democratic defections are based upon race (perhaps at least partially explaining the elderly defectors?), and it’s easy to see those people voting for McCain.
The only lefties America has elected in the last century are FDR, who ran as a budget-balancer in the midst of the Great Depression, and the infeliz Carter, who followed Watergate and sold himself as a believing Babdist.
Is Obama the third exception? I question that, in spite of his charm and rhetorical skill.
Of course, then we’re stuck with McCain . . .
Yes, the only leftists were elected after horrible political or economic events – the depression and watergate.
Which means that if Obama is elected the Bush administration constituted a third horrible event on the order of those previous two, which seems about right.