Talk Elections

Article. (http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/95324/arkansas-poll-finds-pessimism-about-future)


I wish they tested actual candidates :P

This is comparable with previous AR polls.

Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, I don't think Generic Republican Candidate will be nominated.

She put states like these in play but not necessarily win them but her best bet en route 268 with CO, NV plus a bellweather like NH, OH or Va.

2016 is going to be epic. Can't wait!

Fortunately, you mean. Generic Republican would have defeated Obama in 2012, for example.

You sure?

Generic always polls better than actual, so Hillary is probably in the clear.

No unfortunately because Generic Republican Candidate won't be running. Obama was also fortunate if you're trying to make a pun.

Isn't this the only previous 2016 Arkansas poll?

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=177623.0

Romney won Arkansas in 2012 by about the same margin Obama won Maryland. Just for perspective.

Yeah, but Arkansas is very fond of the Clintons, most voters there are registered Democrats, and President Obama is very deeply hated up there.

Still, imagine a poll showing a certain Republican leading generic D by 2 points in Maryland. When I look at it from that perspective, it's easy to see why the Republicans are in desperation mode trying to bring Hillary down.

This.

Its not an apples-to-apples comparison. Obama's huge losing margins in states like AR and WV are unique to him. Any R would get crushed in MD.

They aren't unique to him, but Hillary Clinton would have and certainly will do better if she runs again. I put WV and AR in the likely Republican column of light red states along with GA, SC, LA, and AZ. She could put most of these into play with the exception of maybe SC.

Almost any white Democrat would have done noticeably better in those states.

The problem is that race plays a huge role in Arkansas politics, Arkansas has never voted for someone who is not white at the statewide level, President Obama would lose unbelievably against any Republican challenger, so as long as the Democrats nominate a Clinton then Arkansas will be in play.

I know it's 2013, but if she's leading a Generic R in freaking Arkansas.....

And yet, she's tied with Christie in Iowa, and losing to him by 1 point Colorado.  If we take the current polling map seriously, there are a lot of big swings.

A poll showing a generic R up by 2% in Maryland would indicate that the recent D coalition for victory is in trouble and that the Democratic nominee needs a new coalition to win the next Presidential election. The Democratic nominee would have a chance to lose anywhere between 42 and 48 states and get somewhere between 10 and 119 electoral votes. The reason for such a broad range of bad results is that two of the states on the margin would be California and New York. Coalitions can collapse; look at the Carter coalition between 1976 and 1980 or the Hoover coalition between 1928 and 1932.

Arkansas is not 'near' any giant states in electoral votes that would travel with it. Maryland is just blandly and unselectively liberal. Arkansas is less like Texas in its politics than Maryland is like California. The only 'somewhat similar' state in politics to Arkansas with more than ten electoral votes is Georgia. It has had its swings between populism and conservatism. Most of the states that more heavily voted for Romney in 2012 and some that less heavily voted for him in 2012 are 'conservative' for very different reasons.

So what if the Democratic nominee for President were a Mormon who won the blessing of the LDS hierarchy and had a 6% lead in Utah despite being a liberal because he lives a model life for a Mormon? What would that say of any trend outside of Utah? Practically nothing. Such states as Alabama, Nebraska, and Texas are politically conservative for reasons irrelevant to Utah. Did I tell you that the nominee's parents are Samoan? The ten electoral votes of Idaho and Utah are still not enough for the Democrats if they are losing Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and one of Pennsylvania and Virginia.
 
As it is, the Democrats show no sign of a collapse of the current coalition of victory, and states like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana are added layers of icing on a cake.

A better example by which to place this in perspective:

In 2012, Romney won Arkansas by 23.69%. Obama won Massachusetts by 23.14%

This is essentially the equivalent of a late-2009 poll showing Romney leading a generic Democrat by 2 points in Massachusetts.

Arkansas will go to the GOP again, but it might be like 53-46 rather than 61-37.  Rather, I'm curious whether Clinton doing this well in Arkansas suggests good things for Missouri.

We need to wait a year before we can predict how such states as Arkansas will go in the 2016 Presidential election. By then we will have Congressional and Senatorial elections to determine whether those states are vulnerable to any Democrat at all.  On the other side, should Republicans pick up open Senate seats in Iowa, Michigan, or Wisconsin, Republicans can have a real chance to win the Presidency.

Hillary probably would have carried Arkansas had she been the nominee in 2008, but it would be much less of a sure thing in 2016, after 4 years of working for a black POTUS who has pretty much defined the modern Democratic Party for the past 8 years.  A Hillary victory in Arkansas is still possible (if she runs) but I would be surprised of if her chances would be greater than 50/50.

As for Kentucky and West Virginia, a Hillary victory might have been possible in 2008, but very unlikely in 2016.  She would do better than Obama, but she has become too linked to Obama to actually win those states' electoral votes, in my view.

This is how the electoral map looks at 10:30 PM EDT on the night of Election Day 2014 if Hillary Clinton is going to win much like Obama in 2008 or2012, except with some states much closer but not likely wins:

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No state with closed polls is anything other than close if it is not yet called. Polls are still open in the Far West. Iowa is probably about to be called or was just called for Hillary, and one of the other states in pink may or not be called before the states on the West Coast get called. Called states are yellowed and lightened to orange (for Hillary -- 176 electoral votes, 182 with Iowa) or aqua (for the Republican). One of the states in pink and the sure-thing states on the West Coast (84 electoral votes) win it for Hillary.

Now what does it look like with such states as Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana are leaning slightly for Hillary?


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I don't think Hilary is winning Arkansas. Once they find out about how she is an actual liberal and not just the wife of a former president/governor. I wouldn't take this too hard, in the end, I expect republicans to win the state by a Bush 2004 margin. If another democrat gets elected, I expect the margin to be a little larger. You can argue against me, but I don't think this small lead will last.

I don't live there, but since she has been in the public eye there for much longer than anywhere else, I get the feeling that people in Arkansas have already formed their opinion of Hillary Clinton, and there's little left for them to "find out about" her.

Yeah, assuming these polls showing Hillary doing well in Appalachia hold up, Missouri would probably be a lean D state.

It's not so much that people think she'll win, just that she's digging into the GOP coalition. The GOP desperately needs to GAIN support right now, they can't afford to lose any of the support they currently have,

I can see how Bill Clinton might campaign in the state.  He has great affection for his home state and he will want Hillary to carry it.  Bill is actually a really popular figure even in Arkansas and make no mistake, he will be out on the campaign trail.

This. I expect Arkansas to be contested by the Clinton campaign and Bill proably wanting to win it. I bet they place money into the state and contest it then reevaluate funds in October. It may be close in the polling but dont underestimate the power of Bill on the ground. In the 08 primaries he flipped many small counties for Hillary in many of the states he campaigned in, Arkansas is full of smaller counties that would need to flip in order for Hillary to take it. They may come up short, but I expect they will at least fight for it.

Hillary Clinton +2 on "Generic R" in Arkansas indicates that a significant part of the hemorrhaging of D-leaning votes has been reversed. In 1996 (in which Bill Clinton won Arkansas by a landslide margin), Clinton won all counties except in the northwestern corner of the state.

It's been a long time since Arkansas was really close in a Presidential campaign other than 1980 (something of a surprise) and 2000. Dubya then won it 51-45, and Gore still won Pulaski County (Little Rock) and most of the counties in the eastern two tiers of the state and a few in the southwest -- but practically nothing to the north and west of US 67 and Interstate 30.  Arkansas seems to go wildly one way or another. It went 69-31 for Nixon in 1972,  60-36 for Reagan in 1984, but 65-35 for Carter in 1976. 

The Ozarks are gone for the Democrats except that the northwestern, somewhat urban counties (Benton, Washington, and maybe Sebastian) would have to get closer. Wal*Mart influence? Wal*Mart is one of the biggest customers for welfare recipients and is one of the biggest transactors in SNAP payments. It has more of a stake in welfare than does Whole Foods.  Hillary would have to pick up northeastern Arkansas (Craighead, Greene, Mississippi), some of whose counties went to Al Gore in 2000.

There could be much nostalgia for Bill Clinton in 2016, especially after the catastrophic failure of Dubya as President in economics (things could be good for a while, and then one got the bill) and of a lopsided recovery under Obama.

Considering that Hillary won't be able to run away from Obama, I doubt she wins Arkansas, West Virginia or Kentucky. Missouri could be interesting, but whatever gains she makes in the Ozarks may be countered by a poor performance in the suburbs. Though Obama already performed poorly in the suburbs in 2012 so it might not be that big of an issue.

Hillary would probably do much better than Obama in Arkansas, since she's a Clinton and she's white, but the fact that she she worked for Obama might be too much of a burden for her to overcome to actually win the state.

If they find that out, they will be mistaken.

The ghost of liberalism oooooh lol. :P

Are Americans really this stupid? And yes, I'm talking to the young Republicans among you. ;)

PPP backs this up ...