Talk Elections

Assume economic events, Olympics and Russia-Georgia still occur.

The more I think about it, the more I think she could have lost based on her over reliance on 'hand me down' strategy from Bill. There would have been no Palin either.

I think she would have been able to win the Gore/Kerry states plus Ohio and that would have been it. A win - but not a new coalition.

I'm not convinced Obama has built a new coalition for the Democratic party. These voters came together for him, the question is whether they will for someone else. And I'm really talking more about his primary coalition than anything else. I don't see that one emerging very often making it difficult for someone like him to get to the general.

Few things you have to consider:
1) Hillary winning would have disenfranchised african americans, and that would have made african american turnout low.
2) Ditto for youth vote
3) McCain wouldn't have chosen Palin.  Probably would have chosen Lieberman, or Giuliani.
4) Hillary performed well in NH, which should have overcome any sort of "McCain possibility".
5) Hillary is from Scranton, so she would have had no problem winning the PA vote.
6) McCain knowing PA probably wasn't in play would have spent more time elsewhere.

With that said...
ME, NH, VT, RI, CT, MA, NY, NJ, PA, DE, DC, MD, MI, OH, IL, MN, WI would have been in the bag for her.
CA, OR, WA and HI are also in the bag.
Arkansas would have been a toss-up.  Might have actually gone to Hillary.  I'd say it would have given Bill's influence.
Florida i would give to Hillary too.
New Mexico would probably come down to the wire and gone to Hillary.

All McCain states minus Arkansas would have been redder, including Missouri.  Thats 165.
Because of the disenfranchised african american vote, North Carolina would have gone to McCain easily.
African American vote I think had some play in VA, so I'd give VA to McCain.
I would give NV and IN to McCain...
I would also give CO and IA to McCain.

That gives me 310-228.

Did the New Deal Coalition ever really come together for anyone besides FDR?

Truman lost much of the South to Thurmond.
Stevenson obviously didn't pull the coalition together that well, as he lost the Northeast pretty badly.
Kennedy didn't do too well in the South, but he pulled the Coalition together fairly well.
LBJ didnt' have the South.
By Humphrey, it was pretty much dead.

Carter held together the last remnants of the New Deal Coalition, but even by that time, Nixon had broken it twice in 1968 and 1972.

That seems right to me, though I would give West Virginia and Iowa to Clinton (and maybe Missouri). Many voters after seeing the economy collapse would think back to the Clinton years and vote for Hillary.

The national exit poll shows that Hillary would have defeated McCain by 11 points nationally.

Clinton 52
McCain 41
Wouldn't have vote 5

Should would have done about as well or better than Obama, she just would have done it in different places.

Good point, but Roosevelt was allowed to run 4 times. I don't think they wil change the constitution, even if he is the one. ;)

Also, Truman got over 400 EVs. I would say the New Deal coalition held up good enough for him. The election is actually a good case for the strength of it. Given all the circumstances he should have lost. For presidential elections it fell apart from that point onwards though.

Also, these were very bad circumstances for the GOP and the loss wasn't THAT bad. They're still left with a pretty strong base of support. The Democrats had a streak of 7 elections where they only got above 50% once. Hell, only above 46% once. The Republicans are not necessarily there just yet.

Considering the national polls (the average of them all, at least) got Obama's margin right (~6+), I'll take that value (Clinton+11) with some level of confidence.

Different places, indeed...
She probably would have had larger margins of victories in OH and FL, while picking up a lot more votes in places like WV, KY, TN, LA and AR (all of which went for Clinton in 92 and 96).

I imagine the map would look something like this:

()

Hillary is from Chicago.

bgwah's map looks right except I think Hillary would have won Nevada as well.  She won the primary there and had very strong support from the Hispanic community.  Throughout the campaign she and Obama polled about as equally well against McCain in Nevada.   Once the economic crisis broke the state would have moved in her favor, just as it did for Barack.  She was the first Presidential candidate to grasp the seriousness of the mortgage crisis, which is a huge issue in Nevada.  Plus, she has a clear record of opposing Yucca Mountain.  She would have won.

     She would have won, though much less decisively.

I agree, except maybe flipping NV (she has popularity with Hispanics and that state is now solidly Democratic).  I don't think Hillary would win MO either.

But if she ran a poor campaign, McCain would be running with Pawlenty or something and could have been more competitive in the upper Midwest, Florida, and/or even Oregon.  We have to assume Hillary wouldn't win by as large of a margin

Didn't the early head-to-head hypotheticals have her winning Kentucky as well, or am I going crazy?

The last Rasmussen poll for Kentucky had it at:
Clinton 51
McCain 42

At the very least Kentucky would have been a toss-up considering how bad the economy is and the electorate in KY is almost 50% dem.

Clinton would have won NV, CO is a different story though.  I also think she could have won MO because, unlike Obama, she would have strongly appealed to white women.

Such polls are meaningless, because people weren't exposed to an actual Clinton-McCain campaign.  They can only make guesses as to how they would have reacted to such a campaign.  No one has been running negative ads against Hillary Clinton for the last six months, so it doesn't surprise me that she might have inflated numbers right now.

I dont think Democrats would have picked as many House and Senate seats with Hillary. 

With Iraq off the backburner, Clinton would have done well.

Yeah if McCain never called Hillary a liberal (like what happened during the Dem. primary) she might actually win Kentucky.  Good luck with that.

Florida?  I see no possible circumstance where she would be a weaker candidate in that state than Obama.  The state was an excellent demographic fit for her (seniors, Jews, Hispanics, transplanted New Yorkers) and while they were both in the race she ran much stronger there against McCain than Obama did.  Obama didn't inch ahead in that state until the economic crisis broke; Hillary was leading there back in April and May.  Her longstanding emphasis on the home foreclosure crisis would have played well there too.  She would have locked up that state easily once the crisis broke.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/fl/florida_mccain_vs_clinton-417.html (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/fl/florida_mccain_vs_clinton-417.html)

She would be a stronger candidate than Obama in Florida.

I clearly said "if she ran a worse campaign"  and "wouldn't win by as large of a margin [as 6%]"- implying that she got bogged down more than Obama did overall :)  Like if the Republicans ran ads against her accusing a molested child of making up her story (this is truthy from her attorney days) and it stuck or something.

I think she would have won all the Obama states along with MO, MT, AK, WV and maybe KY.

You actually mean AR (Arkansas), right?   AK is the abbreviation for Alaska.  There is no chance that Hillary would have won there.  She would not have won Montana either.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/mt/montana_mccain_vs_clinton-613.html (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/mt/montana_mccain_vs_clinton-613.html)

SOrry, AR

It really all depends on if you are talking about her winning the nasty primary with Obama, or Lets say Obama had dropped out after losing NH.

If she had won in the nasty way that happened at the end this year then I would say..
NC, IN, CO, and VA would not have been in play.  

One thing to remember is Hillary ran a pretty dull campaign which allowed Obama to sneak up on her.  If Obama had not went on after NH, then Hillary like McCain would have been running dull campaigns which may have benefited McCain barring the meltdown.   Turnout would have not been high with a Hillary/ McCain election.   McCain is a better candidate win running against someone like Hillary.  

I too concur with this map with the exception of Nevada.  It was such a decisive win for Obama and Hillary had a strong showing here during the caucus so I'm pretty sure it would have gone for her.

She certainly wouldn't have been able to pull of Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, or NE-2.  Colorado would be difficult for her but its possible it might have gone her way.  She also would have had a decent shot at Kentucky IMO.

Down ballot Kay Hagan might have lost her Senate race if Hillary were the nominee but I have a feeling Mitch McConnell would have gone down instead.  There probably wouldn't be a run-off in Georgia as decreased black turnout would have assured Chambliss getting over 50%.  With Hillary atop the ticket I highly doubt McCain would have looked twice at Palin.  I'd put my money on him choosing Huckabee instead in an effort to protect Arkansas.  Without Palin to boost the turnout of Alaska conservatives, Begich would have won by now.  I don't think she would have been any better for the end result in Senate.

In the House the possibilities are endless but I don't think too much would change.  The loss of Palin would have brought Young down along with Stevens in Alaska.  But I don't think Sali would have lost in ID-1 with Clinton on the ticket.  Its possible Clinton could have boosted Boswell in KY-2 but I think that would have been canceled out by a Kratovil loss in MD-1.  In Missouri, Clinton might have helped Baker over the top in the 9th but she may have hurt Driehaus in Ohio's 1st where increased black turnout was a factor.  She also would have hurt Nye and Perriello in VA-2 and VA-5 respectively.  But its possible should could have pushed Hedrick over the top in the surprisingly close race in CA-44.

Bottom line, although Clinton's path to 270 would have been slightly different than Obama's I doubt the end results would have been that much different.

I assume you mean 300 EVs for Truman, not 400.  He got 303. Still, your point stands.

Still, there's always the chance Hillary would have blown it somehow. We made the right choice.

People who think Kentucky would be a tossup = lol.

"Secretly liberal" Hillary from New York who never had an ad or narrative against her accusing her of being liberal does not equal Centrist Bill Clinton with  on the sidelines.

C'mon, she would lose a lot of her blue-collar roots as soon as McCain ran a single ad against her.

I agree with Morden.  We can't discount the potential "well, I would've voted for Clinton, I swear" phenomenon.  Honestly, a +11 is probably worse than Generic Democrat would have run -- and in such an environment as this, Generic Democrat almost invariably runs better than Real Democrat in theory.

^^^^^^^

Missouri = no way.  Nevada = easy dem with solid Hispanic support as we just learned.

I suppose Nevada might have gone Clinton. I doubt her GOTV effort would have been nearly as impressive, though she did somehow manage to win the caucus there (her only one, so perhaps the Clinton campaign in Nevada was one of her best actually? Who knows). If she did win it, however, I doubt it would've been by more than two or three points. McCain would be much stronger in Nevada against Hillary Clinton.

As for Missouri, I think Clinton would have been a stronger candidate there and considering Obama barely lost it, I think she would've had a >50% chance of taking it. The real question for Missouri is whether low black turn-out in the cities would counter Clinton doing better among rural whites (and thus keeping the state for McCain). I have a feeling she would win it by 1 or 2 points, though.

Clinton would definitely win the West Coast and Upper Midwest with smaller margins than Obama did, but considering how decisively he won them all she would've taken them anyway. Iowa would be the closest and might be down to a 1-2% Clinton victory. So while she would overall probably have a smaller PV margin, I think she would only do 10-20 electoral votes worse than Obama did.

Yes, of course. Not much sleep this last week for me... :P

Whites: 55-45 McCain
Blacks: 75-25 Clinton
Hispanics: 70-30 Clinton
Asians: 65-35 Clinton

I'm sorry, but no Republican is getting 25% of the black vote. Hillary would've gotten 85% minimum. They are just too solid a block to split like that.

Early polls showed McCain getting 25% of blacks in Hillary-McCain matchups probably resulting in bitterness from Obama not getting the nod.

Yeah, but they'd come around. They are lockstep Democrat voters even if they threaten not to vote for them. I'll believe it when I see it.

Just like all of those McCain voters who really would have voted Clinton, I'm sure.

The margin for Hillary would have been larger I think. But maybe in that race I would have ended up voting for McCain, so it's problematical.

I think people are dismissing the fact that Clinton-Obama was not an either or equation. Obama winning meant that Clinton could not take the VP position, but a Clinton victory would have almost required Obama in the VP position in order for her to unite the party. That combination had the potential to be far more formidable than is being considered here. It would have combined Clinton's blue collar appeal, and credentials, with Obama's ability to motivate African Americans and to lesser extent young voters. This motivation would not have been to the same extent, but I think people underestimate two things:

1. How much young voters generally dislike the Bush GOP.
2. How meaningful it would be for African Americans to have an African American anywhere on the ticket, even in the number two spot.

In such an environment Obama's policies and background would not have come under such attack, nor would they have received such attention. Furthermore, I think the way Clinton has been attacked has inoculated her against many obvious charges. For fifteen years we've been told she is a Lady Macbeth who is ruthless with her enemies. Who would you rather have facing Ahmadinejad across a table? Lady Macbeth, or a senile old man?

I think McCain v. Clinton/Anyone else would be close, but I think McCain v. Clinton/Obama would have been a landslide on par with what happened.

That's the way I feel. Turnout was overhyped and just a little bigger than 2004...the Youth Vote was the same as 2000 and 2004...black turnout was higher...but that was expected. I simply think that many Americans wanted a change, and felt Barack Obama had the best ideas. I don't think it was a certain minority that elected him....I think it was just America in general, as they did to Reagan, Clinton and Bush before hand.

With the state the economy had descended to during the campaign, any credible Democrat would have won this election, and certainly including Hillary Clinton.

I agree.  My guess is that Clinton would have employed a 2006 McCaskill-like strategy of campaigning out in the exurban and rural areas to cut into McCain's base.  It would not have been difficult for her to down a shot and then bang the drum against the McCain-Bush economic policies in front of these folks.  In this climate I think Clinton's turnout in the cities would have been fine.