NC PrimD: Survey USA: Obama leads Clinton by 9

[Gustaf]

Is there really any other way to do it though? The nature of exit polling makes it kind of difficult to weigh the different polling sites you poll.

I wish I knew more about exit poll polling, but the way it changes makes me think they just do a hard "dumb" weight.  I hope I'm wrong.

I'm pretty sure that's what they do, yeah.

[Gustaf]

How does North Carolina compare to other Southern states in terms of % black population?

[Gustaf]

How does North Carolina compare to other Southern states in terms of % black population?

22% black. More than Virginia, less than Obama's other Southern states. But the racial divide is considerably less stark in North Carolina than in the Deep South, more similar to Virginia. Racist voting patterns are still somewhat stronger in NC than in VA, however, as the "Northernized" (for lack of a better term) urban and suburban white population is smaller.

Far western North Carolina will be brutal for Obama, although not quite as bad as southwestern Virginia; more like eastern Tennessee. Obama will win white voters in some parts of the center of the state, where most of the population (and especially most of the Democrats) live.

Your post, mostly, sums up what I already knew. I wanted exact percentages to play around with. But I should find them myself, I guess.

[Gustaf]

in comparing NC to VA, I would think that VA is more Obama friendly:

1.  while black population is slightly smaller, the state historically is more Republican, so the % of black dem primary voters might actually be higher in VA.
2.  VA has a lot more liberal obama base in NOVA than NC has in the triangle.
3.  timing wise, I think Obama's perception today is weaker than it was back when VA voted.

as a result, I would expect Obama to win NC, but a 10 point win might be all he can pull out of it.  I'm still hoping he wins by 20, just doubting it.

Now this, and what Sam said, is the kind of stuff I like. Not as bad demographically for Clinton as I thought then. Still, seems too bad to permit a win.

Next question: what percentage there are registered Democrats? Or, in other words, how many Jessecrats are still around to turn out and vote against the black man? I'm guessing that is what decides North Carolina, since Clinton is going to need a white turnout and an incredible margin among those whites in order to come close. Which is why that seems unlikely.

[Gustaf]

Virginia was an open primary so historical Republicanism didn't matter. North Carolina is semi-open with independents being allowed to vote and as Al has pointed out, the industrial areas of North Carolina are historically Republican, so that's another advantage for Obama.

I'm not entirely sure whetehr the first part is directed at me, but perhaps I should clarify that when talking about percentage of Democrats I'm not really after a comparison with Virginia, at least not primarily. I'm aware that Virginia was open and that North Carolina is only semi-open. But part of my point is that I THINK NC is one of those places where you have people who are registered Democrats but vote Republican (Oklahoma is probably the best example of this). The more there are of those, the better for Clinton. So I'm trying to get a gauge of that. I'm pretty sure there are far from enough, of course.

[Gustaf]

Well, I looked at the VA exit poll numbers and had some unscientific fun with them. I threw out the Republicans and "Others", did not adjust the black percentage (not that big a difference) made white independents a tie and bumped up Clinton's percentage of the white Democrat vote a bit. Still got Obama winning by 16%...if she wins white Democrats and white Independents by the same margins as in Pennsylvania it gets down to 12%. So it probably isn't winnable for her. I guess the question is whether she can avoid getting embarrased...