PA PrimD: Survey USA: Clinton far ahead of Obama

[Jake]

Could PA be any worse for Obama than OH? There is, of course, ample time for Obama to campaign and close the gap

Dave

Actually, yeah it could. PA is closed which will reduce crossovers by a significant amount simply because Obama now has two weeks to re-register independents and Republicans where they could simply request to change affiliation at the polling station. Pennsylvania also has a slightly smaller percentage of blacks and unlike in Ohio, Obama won't have the endorsement and machine of the mayors of the bigger cities (Rendell, Nutter, and Street are backing Hillary; Mallory and Jackson backed Obama).

All in all, it could get very ugly for Obama, like 15 point margin ugly.

[Jake]

you really don't have an area in Ohio like suburban philly, which is an area Obama will do quite well in.

No? Northeast of Cleveland? Outside of Cincy? Columbus 'burbs? Certainly more prone to vote Republican in Ohio, but many of the Democratic votes that pushed Rendell, Sestak, Murphy, etc. into power were made by disaffected Republicans (Montco recorded 104,000 votes in the 2007 Primary - 39,000 Dems and 60,000 Republicans).

[Jake]

An off year election has a bit of a different dynamic.

No shit. We're talking about a 61%-39% registration difference; ie, 21,000 Democrats and 0 Republicans would've had to have stayed home last April to even bring the numbers even. There wasn't any reason for more Republicans to turn out; neither party had contested Commissioner races, neither had any opposed row office races, and they obviously weren't pouring out in droves to vote on judges as only 71% and 61% of folks cast votes in the GOP primary for state judges. And you said it yourself, Montco is filled with professionals, higher income folks, 87% white, etc. There's no reason for the normal Democratic off year election downturn to occur here; both party's voters should be about equally as likely to vote.

Seems there's one conclusion to draw here Smash. Voters in Southeast PA are still registered majority Republican of those stating a party, and thus are ineligible to vote in this race on April 22.

[Jake]

Not really. Many will switch registrations.

Define "many". Because we've seen plenty of open or modified primaries where you could walk into the polling place and either just take a ballot or re-register on site, but we've not seen many of the truly closed, must be registered a month before, can't change your registration at the door, etc. primaries this cycle.

[Jake]

I'll add, in Ohio 31% of voters were Republicans or Independents. They were basically equal (49-49, 50-48 Obama). Clinton beat him 56-42 among Democrats. He lost white Democrats 70-27.

Let's review. Approximately 679,000 of 2,187,000 voters were not Democrats.

Article posted recently said 65,000 new Democrats registered while Republican numbers grew by 3,000 and Indies by 8,000. Now, total registration grew by 76,000. How many of those registrations are GOP/IND -> DEM and how many are new Democrats? Impossible to know, but that's another very important question.

And that's ignoring that 65,000 is less than a tenth of the total that voted in Ohio, and PA should have more total voters.

[Jake]

For 2% of the electorate to make up 6% of voters turnout will need to drop to 33% of the electorate with every new voter voting.