What if he runs on a third-party ticket (let us say "Reform", if not some new party) -- as Romney/Palin win the GOP nominations? Huckabee will not be running as a racist as did Strom Thurmond in 1948 or as George Wallace in 1968, so he might get some support outside the South -- enough to leave some 38-34-28 splits in some states. Note the very pale colors that indicate such splits. I predict that he would get much of the white vote that Bill Clinton would have gotten in 1992 or 1996 or Carter in 1976 -- but not in the West, New England, or Great Lakes Region.
The results look strange, but some have solid explanations. Obama largely holds onto the core Democratic states. He picks up Arizona, where neither Huckabee nor Romney has any obvious advantage. He holds onto Florida and Virginia, not part of the core of the South culturally or politically -- by thin margins. Virginia has drifted into the core of the Democratic Party.
Romney wins heavily-Mormon Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho by large margins, as one would expect and barely holds onto the Plains states (he wins NE-03, but wins Nebraska at large, which splits) but falls short of picking up Indiana and Ohio in part because Huckabee picks up the votes from the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Palin effectively delivers Alaska, but nothing else, to Romney.
Huckabee does something remarkable: he picks up all of the core South except Mississippi, takes North Carolina (barely), Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia. He comes close to picking off Texas and Oklahoma, but that would not have been enough to win the election.
In Florida, Obama wins enough of the Jewish, Latino, and black vote to barely edge out Huckabee and Romney (the latter doing better in Florida than in any other state in the South that he lost). Mississippi? Romney and Huckabee campaigned heavily in the South, split the white vote, and Obama wins the black vote.
Results in this scenario:
Obama 360
Huckabee 107
Romney 61(note that I have not adjusted for re-apportionment of Congressional seats).
This is a catastrophic election for the GOP -- one in which it might be overtaken by the Reform Party.
