MO-Smart/Transpontation Issues/Statewide races: Clinton leads Trump by 2

[pbrower2a]

Notice the high level of undecideds.  How many Republicans say that they wouldn't vote for Trump right now, but would in November?  But, again, we don't have to worry because Trump won't be the nominee (and I fully stand behind my pledge from January in the Forum Community board).

A high number of undecided voters is possible. People may agree with Donald Trump on issues yet find violent language by him and violent treatment of protesters intolerable. If a huge number of Republicans start to think "We can afford to lose this election", then  such can result in Republicans voting for Hillary Clinton or making protest votes for an independent or write-in candidate.

[pbrower2a]

In just about any state, a Democrat needs an overwhelming majority of his own Party and a Republican needs an overwhelming majority of his own Party to have a chance. Obviously a Democrat could get 99% of the Democratic vote and a Republican could get only about 87% of the Republican vote in Utah and the Republican would still win Utah. But there are limits, and we are seeing some of those.

[pbrower2a]

So far Hillary Clinton seems likely to win just about anything that Obama won in 2008 against Donald Trump. The Obama wins could easily be relevant to 2016, and those look like near-inverses of Eisenhower wins in the 1950s except mostly for states in which livestock ranching figures large in the economy:

 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2008 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once

...Political culture matters. Good reasons exist for neither of the Dakotas going for the Democrats only once since 1936 and Minnesota going for the Republican nominee only once since 1956.

Anything added to the Obama win of 2008 suggests a blowout for the Democratic nominee. Donald Trump will have trouble winning Utah... I wonder how well he will be received in the Northern Plains? Family values and other civic habits in the Northern Plains are very similar to those of Mormons. On the other side, if southern white people are beginning to realize that in return for supporting right-wing city-slickers they get practically nothing in return, then states that went to Clinton but not to Obama start appearing in the Democratic win column. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. Such suggests that much goes right for Hillary Clinton that has not happened together for any other Democratic nominee since LBJ in 1964. Jimmy Carter in 1976 won several states (Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina) that have never since gone to any Democratic nominee while losing a raft of states that Democratic nominees either have not lost since 1988 or that Democrats have not won without (Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire) since 1988.  Obama was the first Democrat to win Virginia in any election in anything at all resembling a close election since 1948... but got absolutely crushed twice in some states that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton won in three elections.

For winning Presidential nominees of the same Party, no two could have more disparate results than Carter and Obama. The two won very few of the same states (eleven!) in the elections of 1976 and 2012. Even if Jimmy Carter should remain alive through the remainder of the Obama Presidency, the 1976 Presidential election might as well be ancient history with respect to contemporary politics: 



Carter 1976, Obama 2008/2012   

Carter 1976, Obama twice  red
Carter 1976, Obama once pink
Carter 1976, Obama never yellow
Ford 1976, Obama twice white
Ford 1976, Obama once light blue
Ford 1976, Obama never blue

...How many winners in the same Party share only eleven of the same states in wins?  Granted, those are electoral behemoths New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and (in 1976) Massachusetts. OK, Carter won North Carolina in 1976 and Obama won the state in 2008... which would make twelve states. 

[pbrower2a]

Any state in the Mountain or Deep South swings D to Clinton in the November election because the white vote so swings because the nominee is NOT Barack Obama. Remember -- he is about as unpopular in much of the Deep and Mountain South as George McGovern was in 1972.

So if Barack Obama is the Democratic mirror-image of Ronald Reagan in the Far West,  the Great Lakes region, and the eastern US, he is the New George McGovern in the Mountain and Deep South.

Just look at West Virginia between 1968 and 1976. Until 2000 West Virginia was more Democratic than the US at large. In 1968 it went for Hubert Humphrey with 49.6% of its vote, almost 6% more Democratic than the US as a whole.  It was one of Humphrey's strongest states. In 1972 it gave 63.6% of its votes to Richard Nixon against a horrible mismatch to West Virginia's political culture, and was almost 3% more Republican in the popular vote than the US as a whole. In 1976 it gave 58% of its vote to Jimmy Carter, who was a good cultural match for West Virginia in a year in which the US gave only 50% of its vote for Carter.

South of your favored north-south divide of Missouri (I-70 or the Missouri River), Missouri is much like West Virginia except for the Bootheel (which might as well be Mississippi) in the southeastern corner of the state and the two large urban areas on the western and eastern ends of your chosen east-west divide (greater Kansas City and greater St. Louis, both of which even spill over into an adjoining state). The Ozarks and Appalachia even look much alike.  

Is Hillary Clinton a good cultural match for the Ozarks or Appalachia? Ask again in November.