Could Obama have a chance in South Carolina in 2012?

[pragmatic liberal]

Is there potential for Obama to compete in South Carolina in 2012?

Obviously, S.C. won't even be under consideration if Obama is facing a difficult reelection. But if he's popular and looks likely to win, then might he make a play in SC?

Historically, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina have been considered the "Super South" - places were racial grievance and polarization was high and where the politics was fairly extreme right-wing. These days, SC is still a conservative state, but compared to MS and AL in 2008, SC was fairly friendly to Obama. Obama got 26% of the White vote there, which was actually higher than Kerry's share of the white vote in SC in 2004 (22%). Overall, Obama lost SC by 9 points -- a decent margin, but much less than the 15-20 point margins he lost AL, MS, AR, LA and even TN by.

Do you think Obama will make a play for SC in 2012 if he's in a position to try and expand the map?

[Holmes]

Well, Obama did campaign there during the primaries... but after that, he just disappeared. Whether that was enough to have him get 4% more of the white vote then Kerry, I dunno.

I think it's reachable, but like I said, it's easier to sway 20,000 people in North and South Dakota than 200,000 people in South Carolina. But who knows, Obama will be a(n even bigger) household name by then, he might treat the region's needs very well, Republicans can nominate a crappy candidate... who knows.

Oh, but I think if Obama can win South Carolina, he has a good shot at Mississippi too. If the white vote there gave Obama 26%, it would've been extremely closer, but McCain would've carried it of course. 26% is still pretty pathetic.

[Jeff from NC]

I'm doubtful.  He could come close, but he had a lot of advantages this time and still lost handily.

I think it comes down to the fact that there is about 50% of the population in SC that always votes Republican and 40% that always votes Democrat (unless it's McGovern or something).  That makes for lots of elections that are not landslides but consistently Republican (at both the presidential and senatorial level).

[The Man From G.O.P.]

No

[Robespierre's Jaw]

Of course not, and whoever does should ought to be shot.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

It is not impossible or implausible. If he does great, then he just might make the remaining coastal states (GA and SC) "in play". And as you noted, SC was one of the closest southern Republican states. It was SC that helped Obama reach the nomination.

[War on Want]

No but I would say with almost 100% certainty he will make it closer.

[pragmatic liberal]

Well, Obama did campaign there during the primaries... but after that, he just disappeared. Whether that was enough to have him get 4% more of the white vote then Kerry, I dunno.

I think it's reachable, but like I said, it's easier to sway 20,000 people in North and South Dakota than 200,000 people in South Carolina. But who knows, Obama will be a(n even bigger) household name by then, he might treat the region's needs very well, Republicans can nominate a crappy candidate... who knows.

Oh, but I think if Obama can win South Carolina, he has a good shot at Mississippi too. If the white vote there gave Obama 26%, it would've been extremely closer, but McCain would've carried it of course. 26% is still pretty pathetic.

Well, racial polarization in MS and AL is even greater than in SC. Obama only got something like 9% of the white vote in Alabama.

IF Obama -- or any Democrat -- could get 20% of the white vote in AL or MS, they could win the states. But the racial/partisan polarization is so high that is an extremely high burden.

It's easier to imagine Obama going from 26% to 30% of the white vote in SC than going from 10% to 20% of the white vote in MS or AL.

[Jacobtm]

It was the 5th closest state Obama lost, after MO, MT, GA and AZ. GA is obviously the closest comparison to make, and Obama did about 2 points better in GA than SC. The Obama campaign spent alot more time/resources/money in Georgia than they did in South Carolina (i.e. nearly none). Also, Georgia had a close Senate race which focused even more Democratic attention on the state.

Perhaps the lesson of Georgia is that in the deep south, no matter how much effort you put in, a Democrat still can't break 50%. Or perhaps you could look at it and discern that if it had been more like Indiana, where there was no competitive race energizing Republicans, and they didn't believe that the Democrats had a chance, that the Obama campaign's registration drives could've actually flipped it.

Either way, South Carolina is not far behind Georgia in trending Democratic, and there's no reason if Obama dedicated some resources to SC it couldn't come even closer to Georgia. Whether he can win either is up in the air, but if GA is winnable, SC is right behind it.

[blagohair.com]

AL and MS are so polarized it's scary.

[Lunar]

SC = certainly in a REAL landslide.

Could Obama have a REAL landslide?  Sure.  Quite unlikely, but sure.


Move along

[Jacobtm]

Lunar, after seeing flips like those that occurred in Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina, why would you so quickly write off an SC win in '12?

[Lunar]

Lunar, after seeing flips like those that occurred in Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina, why would you so quickly write off an SC win in '12?

Well, I have a hard time seeing Obama do 5-6% better nationally than he did in 2008 considering he'll be spending trillions of dollars and people will be poorer.  But it's absolutely feasible.  But he'd need a real landslide (which really isn't that uncommon historically)

But who knows?

I'm actually not writing it off.

Also, Black turnout *could* go down because of the non-historic thingamajig, but that's another question mark.

[Tender Branson]

If he still enjoys 70-80% approval ratings by November 2012, then yes ...

[Holmes]

AL and MS are so polarized it's scary.

No kidding, if Democrats enjoyed the same kind of white vote there compared to other Republican states, there'd be no competition for Democrats. But I guess that's a vote Republicans can always count on...

[Jacobtm]

Lunar, after seeing flips like those that occurred in Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina, why would you so quickly write off an SC win in '12?

Well, I have a hard time seeing Obama do 5-6% better nationally than he did in 2008 considering he'll be spending trillions of dollars and people will be poorer.  But it's absolutely feasible.  But he'd need a real landslide (which really isn't that uncommon historically)

Lunar, after seeing flips like those that occurred in Indiana, Nevada and North Carolina, why would you so quickly write off an SC win in '12?

Well, I have a hard time seeing Obama do 5-6% better nationally than he did in 2008 considering he'll be spending trillions of dollars and people will be poorer.  But it's absolutely feasible.  But he'd need a real landslide (which really isn't that uncommon historically)

Well he could end up doing 5-6 points better nationally, always an option of good Republicans sit out the '12 campaign.

But absent that, he wouldn't need to win by that much nationally. While Obama got a national swing of 4 points over Kerry, the states which Obama flipped swung about 7 points on average. Even if the PV had been tied, or if Obama had narrowly lost, he would have still been able to win because he registered so many new voters and had such an effective GOTV operation. So if he turned that attention over to SC (which trended 4 points to Obama, the national average), then he'd certainly be able to squeeze somewhere around 3 extra points out of the state. So that gets him to 47.5% in S.C. And with old people  dying and new voters coming of age, you can probably give a little extra to Obama on top of that. And then S.C. is barely a lean R.

But that's assuming Obama does dedicate as much time/money to SC as he did to states like CO and VA, which he may decide not to in an effort to hold onto his '08 map.

My point is that SC is not un-winnable; a swing of 6 points can be achieved in any particular state without such a big national swing. However, Obama would need to dedicate his full campaigning efforts to bring it into competition

[Michael Z]

Who knows. Four years ago, not many people would have prediced a Democrat winning Indiana and North Carolina in 2008.

[yoman82]

I would say no, but we can expect it from future Democratic candidates. Georgia's certainly possible, though.

[Prez Duke]

Obama did really well here in Charleston. It was the first time it went Democrat since 76 and it hadn't gone Democrat since 1944 before that. It's kind of scary. The county went to Bush by 10 in 2000, 4 in 2004, and to Obama by almost 10 in 2008.

My county may become a Democratic stronghold in SC! The horror!

That being said, Republicans like Sanford and Graham still win it by a decent margin.

[Padfoot]

I'm waiting to see what happens to SC-1 and SC-2 in the 2010 midterm.  If Democrats manage to snag at least one of them then it might be worth Obama's time to contest the state.

[Senator Ben]

No, but he can make it closer than it's been in years.

[True Federalist]

Obama did really well here in Charleston. It was the first time it went Democrat since 76 and it hadn't gone Democrat since 1944 before that. It's kind of scary. The county went to Bush by 10 in 2000, 4 in 2004, and to Obama by almost 10 in 2008.

My county may become a Democratic stronghold in SC! The horror!

That being said, Republicans like Sanford and Graham still win it by a decent margin.

If Sanford keeps playing more stunts like the one he's doing with unemployment benefits,

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=90517.0

I think he'd have a hard time winning reelection in 2010 even if he could run.  I think Sanford is laying the groundwork to ensure that if the GOP runs a candidate like him in 2012, Obama will have a chance to win the state.

[humder]

 This thread could be bumped up after the 2012 election, the same way Indiana threads have been.

[memphis]

In an 1964 style landslide, yes. Otherwise, no.