Big State Distortions and Buyer's Remorse--in California, At Least

One of the linchpins of Clinton's claim to a winning electoral map (the catchy "map, not math" jingle that made its debut recently) is that she has won all the big states that are rich in electoral college votes.

The biggest state population-wise is where I'm based: California. At 55 electoral college votes, the next president has to carry this state to make 270 electoral college votes or face defeat.

Clinton won a majority of the delegates in California when our primary was held on Super Tuesday. But one of the biggest fallacies of her argument for viability as a nominee is the assumption that all those "17 million people" who voted for her have not budged in their support for her.

Anecdotally, it's been interesting for me to see how many Californians in real life said they voted for Clinton but, ever since Super Tuesday, have grown increasingly appalled at what she's said and done, and how she's run her campaign. Many blue-voting former Clinton supporters have told me if the primary were today, they would vote differently than they did previously.

Now two recently released polls give empirical basis to my gut feeling and shows that Californians are solidly coalescing their support around Obama.

Here's what the non-partisan Public Policy Institute poll had to say about Clinton:

In a state whose Democratic primary Clinton won in February, 51 percent of voters now say they have an unfavorable opinion of her; 53 percent of voters feel the same way about Republican McCain.

And about Obama:

If the general election were held today [May 22, 2008, the date the post was written], 54 percent of Californians say they would vote for him, compared with 37 percent for McCain. That gap has widened by 8 points since March. Obama enjoys the support of more than 80 percent of Democrats here, along with over half (55 percent) of independents. He leads McCain among men and women and is viewed favorably by nearly 70 percent of Latinos—a powerful political group, experts note, not just in California but in several other western states, including Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada.

The LA Times/KTLA poll, which had a much smaller sample, yields this information:

Democratic women, Clinton's bulwark throughout the primaries and a source of emotional sustenance now, in the closing days of the race, showed no sign of turning against Obama. About 74% of them sided with Clinton against McCain; 75% sided with Obama against McCain.
...

[McCain] was also having a difficult time holding on to his own party members. One in five Republicans surveyed by the poll sided with Obama in their matchup. McCain won only 70% of his party colleagues, not enough to offset losing independents and 75% of Democrats to Obama.

Much of the movement is the natural migration of voters on the Democratic ticket to the presumptive nominee--the candidate who has the most delegates, states, and votes. But I can't help but think that many voters who cast their ballots early on have had three months to observe Clinton and now have buyer's remorse.

Others would say that a similar shift among Obama supporters has occurred this long primary season. No doubt there's always a small percentage of voters who have a change of heart as the speeches and gaffes pile up. We voters are fickle. But the caucuses that Clinton's campaign decries as so "undemocratic" have several stages to them, and Obama has either maintained or gained delegates in states all over the nation when they met to elect county and state-level add-on delegates. That tells me the erosion of Obama's supporters is not as great as the erosion of Clinton's supporters when measured by pledged delegate numbers. We also know that polls in the immediate post-Reverend Wright flap show that Obama maintained his approval ratings at a healthy margin over Clinton, which is a first step to choosing Obama over Clinton at ballot-time.

If this buyer's remorse with regard to Clinton is at all the same across any of the other 24 states that held their primaries or caucuses on Super Tuesday, which I think it is, then Obama's support is stronger and not weaker than the current snapshot of his campaign suggests. I have yet to find polls documenting this, but I wouldn't be surprised if buyer's remorse elsewhere is both quantifiable and measurable. Just look at this interesting NJ poll.

The upshot? Clinton's "big state win"--in California, at least--is built on quicksand. And so is the logic of her argument for her own electability. Her "math" didn't work out and now her "map" has a big hole in it too.

So, for the "17 million voters" who back her...it seems that number's on markdown and the discount growing as her campaign implodes in the final stretch of primary season. (I refuse to address the inflation of Clinton's primary leads in states where Rush Bimbo urged his "Operation Chaos" goons to do their thing. To flip conservative Grover Norquist's quip on its ear and apply it to Bimbo: talk about making something small enough to drown it in a bathtub...Bimbo's teeny soul qualifies.)

Map image courtesy of California Voter Foundation.

Cynematic believes the earth is round, that we orbit the sun, and that it's a good, feminist thing for girls to both like math and have a healthy skepticism toward statistics.

She blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Comments

[Debbie]

Yeah - statistics SUCK!

uh, wait. that wasn't your point, huh.

srsly, tho, Cyn, great piece. Well done. I appreciate the perspective, as I hadn't thought of that particular angle, and certainly hadn't done any number-crunching or hunting on it.

[Liz]

Hm... Clearly I need to stop hanging up on pollsters.

That said, I have always said that I will vote for Obama if Clinton is not the nominee. I suspect most Hillary Clinton supporters will, no matter what they say to pollsters. I certainly hope the same is true of Obama supporters.

There was a dark moment when I checked out McCain's website. Being a conservative Democrat, I was like, Yes, Yes, OK, OK... Oh wait, you hate women and want to take my rights away. So, no.

I mean, really, if you are pro-choice you can't vote for him, and a significant part of Hillary Clinton's support comes from hard pro-choicers like myself. I don't care what they say today; they will vote for Obama.

Personally, I don't really get the fuss over the RKF comment any more than I got the fuss over the "bitter" thing. I've been thinking since the beginning that either one of them might get shot, so that's just one more reason both should stay till the end as far as I'm concerned. I don't believe she was actually talking about that, but if she was, it's a factor, and it's a far cry from the comment about Obama running from a shotgun and it's a far cry from the jokes that Hillary is going to have Obama killed.

[whyputaname]

Well I am a Hillary Clinton supporter and I will never ever vote for Obama!

I don't care if he put Mickey Mouse on the ticket. I will only vote for the ticket if she is president.

Other wise not!

[cynematic]

Whyputaname, so which of McCain's policies do you like? Because he and Clinton are oh--only about 170 degrees apart on policy. As in, vastly different. I'm sure, given that you're such a strong Clinton supporter, that you have a way to reconcile this?

Then again, I hear Bob Barr is running on the Libertarian ticket and could use a vote.