Analyzing Obama’s General Election “50 State Strategy”
May 29, 2008
Now that it appears as though Senator Barack Obama will in fact be the Democratic Presidential nominee, therefore it’s safe too start looking at the electoral map and unleash the analysis into the who, what, where and whys of Obama’s general election strategy pertaining to the general election in November. One thing is crystal clear, and that is Obama needs to capitalize in the Southwest, where purple states such as New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado are more then just “in play” for Obama, they are states he can win if he plays his cards right, and runs an effective campaign in those respected states.
SurveyUSA has just recently unveiled their “50 state polls” which compare the head-to-head match-ups between Hillary Clinton and John McCain and then of course the likely match up of Barack Obama and John
McCain. Here is a glimpse at the electoral maps for both of the head to head match ups against Senator John McCain.
Talking Points Memo, who is always on top of anything political, touches on the difference between the Democrats in terms of the electoral map, and points out a couple very interesting nuances these projected polls bring to the surface:
As it stands now, either Dem wins against McCain. Keep in mind this is different than a single national opinion poll, some of which show McCain ahead. SurveyUSA’s exercise here is to allocate electoral votes based on its state-by-state polls.
The interesting thing though is how close Obama and Hillary are to each other in electoral vote count. It’s only a 4 vote difference, even though Obama carries far more states. The key difference? She takes Pennsylvania and Florida.
As you can see the “projected electoral” map does not have Senator Barack Obama winning wither Florida or Pennsylvania (also pointed out by Talking Points Memo), however I find this incredibly odd when you take into account the recent polls coming out of Pennsylvania and Florida:
SurveyUSA’s (the same group that put together the electoral maps) most recent Pennsylvania poll shows Senator Obama beating McCain 48% to 40%, not to mention when they added names of possible VP’s, Pennsylvania has Edwards/Obama and/or Rendell/Obama beating McCain and anyone by a margin of 50%-38% with Edwards and 49%-40% with Rendell. The graph to the right shows the trend lines for both john McCain and Barack Obama and it clearly shows that if the election were held today, Obama wins. Now why SurveyUSA’s “50 state map” which is located above, has Hillary winning in Pennsylvania and Obama losing is beyond me.
I would also like to point out a couple states that are showing some incredibly interesting poll numbers, specifically I am referring to Mississippi, and Georgia. Both of these states are, and have been, “electoral” locks for the GOP over the past few general elections. However that may be changing, and if Mississippi’s 1st district special election, which was in (R) Trent Lott’s backyard, elected a Democrat I think it’s safe to say that Obama, at the least, has an outside chance in Mississippi, not to mention another traditionally red state in Virginia, where Obama also holds a lead:
- Rasmussen- Mississippi (Likely voters, Margin of error +/- 4.1%):
(R) John McCain: 50%
(D) Barack Obama: 44%
- SurveyUSA- Virginia (Likely Voters, Margin of Error +/- 4%)
(R) John McCain: 42%
(D) Barack Obama: 49%
What does all these polls and maps tell us? Well, simply put; Barack Obama will have to successfully re draw the electoral map in order to win the 2008 general election. Now, this sounds worse then it really is, that is if things do not implode for Obama. The states that he would need to shift from “red” to “blue”, like New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado, he already holds a lead in.
However when you look at the numbers the reality is Obama trails McCain by a pretty substantial margin in Florida. This means he will have to win both Ohio and Pennsylvania (both of which he currently holds leads in) to secure two out of the three (MI, FL & PA) major swing states. If Barack Obama can do this it would be very tough (more or less impossible) for John McCain to win the election. Here’s the polling in those states:
- Florida (27 votes)
McCain (R) 45%, Obama (D) 41% (Quinnipiac, May 22)
McCain (R) 50%, Obama (D) 40% (Rasmussen, May 21)
- Ohio (20 votes)
Obama (D) 48%, McCain (R) 39% (SurveyUSA, May 23)
McCain (R) 44%, Obama (D) 40% (Quinnipiac, May 22)
- Pennsylvania (21 votes)
Obama (D) 46%, McCain (R) 40% (Quinnipiac, May 22)
Obama (D) 48%, McCain (R) 40% (SurveyUSA, May 20)
I would like to end this by saying that Barack Obama has a plethora of scenarios in front of his which would garnish a victory in November, these scenarios offer alot Obama the luxury not afforded to both Hillary Clinton and Democrats over the past couple general elections the ability to win the White House without winning Ohio and Florida, and instead picking up states like Colorado and Virginia, states he currently holds a comfortable lead in.
Now all he has to do is go out there and successfully execute, this can only be accomplished through a strong field crew within the states mentioned above, a competent and on point campaign message that does not change from day to day, yet remains constant and strong, and the most important of them all; no more political implosion’s, such as we saw with Reverend Wright. If Obama can do this, and do this well, he will in fact become the next President elect. However if he fails in carrying out both these along with a litany of other campaign “musts” the GOP and John McCain will take back the White House faster then you can say. “Boo!”
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