by TexasDarlin
Shepherdstown, W. Va.
While Barack Obama is busy ordering champagne for his premature victory party on May 20th, Hillary Clinton is pounding the West Virginia trail to get-out-the-vote in Tuesday’s primary.
By all accounts Clinton will enjoy a double-digit win in West Virginia, followed by another in Kentucky one week later. And even though Obama, his surrogates, and pundit parrots are furiously pre-spinning his losses in these two states by suggesting that they don’t really matter — West Virginia and Kentucky could end up being game-changers for Clinton. Here’s why:
Rural America can determine who becomes the next President. And West Virginia and Kentucky show off Clinton’s commanding rural advantage.
But they aren’t the only ones. Check out the county-by-county results from four very close contests (Clinton is red; Obama, green):
Missouri (Obama won by 1.3%):
New Mexico (Clinton won by 1%):
Texas (Clinton won by 3.5%):
Indiana (Clinton won by 2%)
As you can see, Clinton’s base covers a broader geographic region, nearly a sweep of counties. Although population counts may be relatively equal between the red and green areas — these maps illustrate how well she consistently performs in rural America.
Hillary has hit her stride in small towns and rural communities across the country, connecting with working class voters with a populist appeal reminiscent of Bobby Kennedy. For those who have followed Hillary Clinton’s life and career, we know it’s genuine. You can see the joy on her face when she’s working the rope line in town squares, even at the end of a 16-hour day. Of course Obama’s “bitter” moment aided her, but cinching this demographic segment is a crucial achievement that Clinton has earned for the Democrats. And, you might say…one benefit of this extended primary season that some party members are anxious to end.
A Democratic pollster for the Wall Street Journal and NBC News said it well:
Rural and small-town voters are the best indicators of whether a candidate is connecting with the values of Middle America. “They are America. Too often Democrats end up with candidates who can speak only to metro America. If you can speak to [rural and small-town America], then you relate to the rest of America.”
Pay attention, folks. These are General Election swing voters needed to reach 270 electoral votes.
Swing voters.
And no one understands that better than the superdelegates, many of whom rely on these same voters for their own re-elections.
So Barack Obama might think twice about dismissing West Virginia and Kentucky, even if he calculates that their votes and delegates are inconsequential to the nomination. The hard-working people of Appalachia and bluegrass country represent a nationwide constituency capable of delivering the White House in November. And for Clinton, they will put her within striking distance of a popular vote lead.
Note: Maps and election results from uselectionatlas
TexasDarlin, all rights reserved.
Not affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign
7 responses so far ↓
Aileen Williams // May 12, 2008 at 4:32 am
Thank you for this work…sincerely. Great job as usual.
texasdarlin // May 12, 2008 at 6:03 am
Thanks Aileen, keep making those calls to WV!
kyle pembroke // May 12, 2008 at 6:50 am
Really? Let’s go through this one at a time.
You say: “Rural America can determine who becomes the next President.”
Of course rural America will play a huge role. Rural America = half of America, so clearly half of America will play a prominent role. No one is arguing against that.
“Check out the county-by-county results from four very close contests (Clinton is red; Obama, green)”
Do states in either the primaries or general election use “counties won” to determine the victor? Or anything at all? If a state’s election is close (and you chose states that were close), but the county-by-county color map is dominated by one color, does that mean that A) The candidate with more counties in his/her color should therefore win, or B) Way more people (i.e., voters) live in certain counties than others? In a state election, the victor is determined solely by which candidate receives more votes, not by how an color-based illustration of the state looks afterwards. Colors should not outweigh numbers. Any Democrat should know this, especially after how Rove used the 2000 and 2004 national Red/Blue maps to say that America is clearly a Republican country, when the numbers told a very different story. Nebraska is way bigger than New Jersey; if you compared just those states side by side and judged by color, you’d say Red Nebraska is way more important than Blue New Jersey. Yet New Jersey’s population is way bigger, hence more electoral votes.
“As you can see, Clinton’s base covers a broader geographic region.”
As I said before, a “broader geographic region” doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t equate with the population living in those regions. Please stop conflating colors with voters.
“Pay attention, folks. These are General Election swing voters needed to reach 270 electoral votes.
Swing voters.
And no one understands that better than the Superdelegates, many of whom rely on these same voters for their own re-elections.”
Yes, they do understand this. And yet, they continue to come out in droves for Obama. Even ones in rural regions whose primary voters either will or already have gone for Hillary. Superdelegates care about this very, very much. And, in spite of your reasoning, they are choosing Obama instead, at a rate that increases every day. Why is this?
“The hard-working people of Appalachia and bluegrass country represent a nationwide constituency capable of delivering the White House in November. And for Clinton, even better: they will put her within striking distance of a popular vote lead.”
Voters in Appalachia and bluegrass country absolutely deserve attention, and they will certainly receive it. Much moreso come the general election. But to say that they will put her within striking distance of the popular-vote lead overstates the likelihood of that happening and the importance of the popular vote, in this particular primary campaign. I know it is a truism among some in this race, particularly in the Hillary camp, that the popular vote is the most important metric in determining the nominee. Frequently, Al Gore’s loss in 2000 is used to support this idea. But the fact is that the determination of the Democratic nominee for president is based on delegates, not popular vote. And anyone arguing for the relevance of states like West Virginia should understand why this is so. If the nomination was earned solely through popular vote, a candidate would have no incentive to visit a state like West Virginia — because there aren’t many voters there. That is why delegates are used instead. Delegates increase the value of smaller states.
If the whole point was to win a popular-vote margin, candidates would campaign in New York, California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and any other state with a lot of voters. There would be no logical reason ever to visit West Virginia or South Dakota or Maine.
If the nomination race was based on anything besides delegate count, who knows what would have happened? The fact is that those were the rules everyone agreed upon beforehand (and for good reason), so to try to reimagine things now by using a different way to measure who the “true winner” or “better candidate” is would be following the fallacy of the predetermined outcome. You are simply saying that “if the rules had been different, clearly my opinion is right.” But by doing that, you ignore that what has happened, happened for a reason. If the rules had been different, it is completely logical that the outcome would be different, because the campaigns would have been run differently. At the bare minimum, you have no right to assume your opinion would inevitably be correct – you are choosing to reimagine things in a way that deliberately leads to the conclusion you have already committed to.
You cannot now insist that different rules should be followed, because even if the rules you now want had been in place at the start, that would have redefined the game from the beginning – so it would have been a different game altogether.
texasdarlin // May 12, 2008 at 1:22 pm
kyle, thanks for the lengthy comment but I think you missed the point, which is that Clinton’s appeal with rural voters can help the Democrats win the White House because they are swing voters. In contrast, Obama’s base consists of mostly of people who don’t cross over in general elections. The color-coded maps are an effective way to illustrate this strength among rural voters.
As for the popular vote, where does it say in the rules that the superdelegates are bound to select the candidate with the most pledged delegates? There is no rule like that, so I think your logic is more just wishful thinking. In fact the SDs are charged with making a decision that’s in the best interest of the party and the nation regardless of delegate counts. Some of those SDs might conclude that the popular vote is a good indicator of the peoples will.
I think you misunderstand 1) the point of the post and 2) the rules of the Democratic party
Ed // May 12, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Why are you cherry picking maps?
There are plenty of maps from southern states (oyou know, the rural states) covered in green? Those don’t count? Is it only the rural voters that go for Hillary that should count?
Goalposts moved again…
texasdarlin // May 12, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Ed, see my comment upthread.
The reason I picked these 4 states is because they were virtual ties in the popular vote, but show an overwhelming comparative strength for Clinton in rural areas. They both have strongly colored maps in states they’ve each won. But look at the states where they tied for a true illustration of Hillary’s broad coalition.
Gob Bluth // May 16, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Riiiight….she’s a populist now. A populist who as a corporate lawyer represented Tyson Foods in Arkansas. A populist who not only counted Wal Mart as a client, but actually sat on their board of directors.
Rarely does Senator Clinton mention that a great deal of her so-called 35 years of experience was spent as a lawyer in a large Arkansas firm. As I stated above, her practice wasn’t serving the public interest, it was a complex corporate practice representing Tyson Foods and Walmart. And she did such a great job for them that she was named one of the top 100 lawyers in the nation. Truly, an accomplishment of which she should be proud. But she didn’t get it by being a populist - she got it by representing her corporate clients well.
But now she’s a populist. Spare me.
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