Clinton v Obama

[ciphergoth]

SurveyUSA have been polling to see how Obama and Clinton might do against McCain if the election was today. Their polls predict that either would win in the electoral college, but Obama's win is by a higher margin.

The chart above plots their relative state-by-state performance according to the poll. Blue states both of them win, red states neither of them win, gray states one wins and the other loses. Obama does better in the states above and to the left of the diagonal, while Clinton does better in those down and to the right. The lines flanking the center lines show where the margin of preference exceeds 10%. DC was not surveyed and is not shown; no Democrat could lose DC. The area of the circle is proportional to the number of electoral votes that state has to give.

I'm amazed at the huge disparity in their performance in some states. Arkansas, West Virginia and Tennessee are all wins for Clinton, but Obama loses them all by over 15 points, while at the other end of the scale North Dakota is a win for Obama but a 19 point loss for Clinton, and Washington state is a loss for Clinton but a 14 point win for Obama.

Here's the same chart zoomed in:

Comments

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Either my understanding of usual US voting patterns is way off or your colours are the wrong way round.

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

This map was really confusing until I realized that you mixed up red and blue.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

oops, fixed!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Fixed now. The UK goes the other way and for some reason I can never keep it straight.

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed at the huge disparity in their performance in some states. Arkansas, West Virginia and Tennessee are all wins for Clinton, but Obama loses them all by over 15 points, while at the other end of the scale North Dakota is a win for Obama but a 19 point loss for Clinton, and Washington state is a loss for Clinton but a 14 point win for Obama.

Western states are more libertarian. They are unimpressed with large entrenched bureaucracies and are unimpressed with the establishment candidate (Clinton.) This probably explains Washington and North Dakota.

Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia are socially conservative. There is no real candidate representing the social conservatives this go around. Arkansas will vote for Clinton because her husband was governor there. The racist sentiments will dominate the sexist ones. Though they could have the white guy, they don't trust the white guy who was accused of having a black baby in the last election. McCain has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh.

[olethros.livejournal.com]

What are the axes - is it X is Clinton's vote in the state, and Y is Obama's?

[hukuma.livejournal.com]

It's the other way in Canada, too, and apparently in the US it used to be inconsistent prior to 2000.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes - so in Washington, Obama does better, while in Florida Clinton does better.

[grum]

I have friends who have grandparents that were born and raised in the south and still live there who vote democrat. The reasoning? The democrats were more conservative back in the day when they started voting and they vote party line and nothing but and have never bothered to figure out that the party lines have changed underneath them a bit.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Labelled now..

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

There's a lot missing from the coverage - and, indeed, from the debate, because Democrats won't talk about it. Race is one - possibly - another is education: specifically, resentment of the teaching unions and the awful effects of 'producer capture' and their resistance to educational reform. Also, the 'machine politics' that dominates the Democratic party in the Northern states and the way that southern Democrats resent it. Although their own organisation isn't so clean either: vote early, vote often, as they say in Louisiana.

Personally, I'd like to see Obama win both the nomination and the election; but the pesimist in me thinks that we'll end up with McCain and a fundamentalist running-mate who'll end up President in the next election but one. Or sooner: McCain's not a young man.

Whoever wins, I fear that the divided and partisan nature of the polity and the political intitutions is going to worsen. If you think the House Republicans were bad under Clinton (B) - they would've burned down the White House to get him out and they revelled in the damage that the Lewinsky affair eventually did to the Presidency - consider what they might do to the hated enemy Clinton (H).

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Allegedly, allegedly...