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September 22, 2007
More State Numbers
by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
I've got 'rents visiting, and therefore not enough time to put together a table, so me follow Brother Neil's observations re: Missouri polling. Via TPM Election Central, SurveyUSA's Ohio polling again shows John Edwards as the best general election candidate in the state. Edwards and Clinton both trail Giuliani by one percentage point, but Edwards fares much better against Romney and Thompson than Clinton does. Since Ohio will have a number of competitive House races, the bigger the margin in the Buckeye State at the top of the ticket, the better.
In fairness, general election matchups in Virginia and Florida have shown Clinton with a lead in Virginia [though without comparison to Edwards or Obama], and tied with Giuliani in Florida, so at present it appears that the two candidates both expand the map, just in different directions.
September 22, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
OK, let's get a few things ironed out here. First, John Edwards does poll best of all the candidates right now, likely because the right wing attack machine hasn't even bothered to target him yet. But we have to ask ourselves why they haven't bothered to target such a potentially strong candidate...and the answer is that they don't think he'll win the nomination, and they're confident they'll be able to paint him as they like come the general if they're wrong. If the past few elections are any indication, they'll try to portray Edwards as a spineless, rich liberal who talks about the poor but buys a huge new house and gets expensive haircuts, all the while raising your taxes. They'll try that with any of the contenders, but they'll have the greatest level of success with Edwards, because he's already made enough unforced errors that I have serious doubts about his ability to run an effective campaign.
Edwards might very well be the most electable just by looking at the numbers now, but projecting poll numbers is a dangerous thing to do. I'm guessing that Obama would actually be the most difficult to paint in such a negative light, as the things that the public knows about him (reformer, religious, tax cuts) are going to be difficult to spin into their traditional anti-Dem narrative. They won't really be able to say anything shocking about Hillary, since they've said it all before, but she's in trouble just by being who she is.
Posted by: Lev | Sep 22, 2007 7:01:53 PM
Lev, at this point, Edwards has more right-wing hit machine exposure than any candidate except Hillary. He's the only one who's run for national office, and all that house/haircut stuff got massive play over the summer. Basically that's all Republicans talked about when they talked about Edwards. The negative stuff is already in this polling, definitely more so than it is for Obama.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Sep 22, 2007 7:25:18 PM
And why should the right wing bother to smear him when both Clinton and the press are doing it for them?
Posted by: akaison | Sep 22, 2007 7:28:52 PM
by the way- I want to note the difference of approach here. Edwards talks about the fact clinton shouldn't accept money from the lobbist for her campaign due to their undue influence in DC, and that's called by her supporters a smear. Meanwhile the best that they can must against Edwards is his haircut, the size of his house, a 3 degrees of separation investment that he had- etc. inuendo by playing the liberal psychology (unless we suffer we don't really mean it when we say we care) and a weak argument over investments. what's interesting is the direct criticism versus the indirect that can be leveled against him, and yet the reaction is that of many of her sychophants on line.
Posted by: akaison | Sep 22, 2007 7:44:18 PM
All of those Ohio numbers are very discouraging.
Posted by: Jason G. | Sep 22, 2007 7:44:39 PM
"All of those Ohio numbers are very discouraging."
Perhaps. But I'm willing to believe that, as lame as this might sound, Ohio doesn't know the real Rudy just yet. New York, however, does, and there, Clinton is beating him by absurd margins.
Maybe it's because I'm not an experienced political operative, but I'm encouraged, even as I am cautious. Unless it's an absolute meltdown for the Republicans, where the Democrats take, at minimum, 35 states by huge margins and lose the others by only small ones, it's probably going to be very close in most of the swing states. Yet look at what is being discussed: not only Florida and Ohio, but Virginia, Colorado, and in some cases, even Kentucky. We're expanding the map, even if parts of it don't end up coming over to the blue column. To me, that itself is progress.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 22, 2007 9:34:06 PM
The danger for Senator Clinton in Ohio is that a cynical Republican candidate succeeds in hanging NAFTA around her neck.
And it was Economic Populism that helped Democrats take all but one of the statewide races in 2006. John Edwards heaviest exposure here was in the General Election in visiting the smaller, more rural counties that Kerry didn't campaign in, and supporting Kerry ... at the top of the ticket, on the platform he is building now, he would have the inside track on the Republican smear machine.
Since we have an honest Secretary of State, if Obama ran, there would be more likely to be enough voting machines in black precincts, also putting him in a better general position than Kerry was in.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Sep 22, 2007 10:20:48 PM
Posted by: Brian | Sep 22, 2007 9:34:06 PM
... not only Florida and Ohio, but Virginia, Colorado, and in some cases, even Kentucky
Kentucky and Ohio have swung together since 1960 ... and its no surprise, since the margin in the Ohio River Valley can often be the factor swinging the state.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Sep 22, 2007 10:24:29 PM
"Kentucky and Ohio have swung together since 1960 ... and its no surprise, since the margin in the Ohio River Valley can often be the factor swinging the state"
At least in the last election, the margins weren't very similar. Bush won Kentucky by a much wider margin than he won Ohio. Right now, there are some polls showing the Democrats within striking distance, if not ahead completely, and I take that as a hugely positive sign.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 23, 2007 6:13:51 PM
"Kentucky and Ohio have swung together since 1960 ... and its no surprise, since the margin in the Ohio River Valley can often be the factor swinging the state"
At least in the last election, the margins weren't very similar. Bush won Kentucky by a much wider margin than he won Ohio. Right now, there are some polls showing the Democrats within striking distance, if not ahead completely, and I take that as a hugely positive sign.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 23, 2007 7:00:20 PM
