Kerry's best over/underperformances compared to 2000 and 2008

[nclib]

***against the national average***

pro-Kerry

AR   18.46
AK   14.09
DC   10.25
LA   9.98
MA   9.89
ME   8.25
OH   7.45
NH   7.08
MN   7
AZ   6.5
WV   6.4
VT   6.02
WY   5.41

anti-Kerry

HI   33.41
IN   14.07
DE   10.17
UT   9.84
NE   9.82
CT   6.41
ND   5.83
NJ   5.31

Obviously, some of these had more to do with home states in other elections (CT, DE, AK, AZ), Bush2004/Obama overperforming (HI), Obama underperforming (AR), and in DC's case, no room to trend Democratic, but does anyone think Kerry was a particularly good or bad candidate for any of these states?

[they don't love you like i love you]

With the exception of Massachusetts and maybe Maine, any state where Kerry was a particularly good candidate is one where Obama was an even better one.

[Stranger in a strange land]

LA: Kerry was clearly a better candidate for the state than Obama, for reasons not entirely having to do with race but still relating to identity politics: being a white Catholic is not a bad thing in Cajun country, and speaking French or "looking French" is by no means a bad thing either, even if it was a liability in other parts of the country.

I can't think why he would have done so badly in the Great Plains. I mean yes, I know he was a petty bad candidate and he ran a truly awful campaign, but it's not like he got clobbered Mondale or Landon style, and had it not been for the Ohio gay marriage referendum, he might well have won the election.

[Husker]

Kerry has little, if anything, in common with most people in this part of the country, other than being catholic. Kerry came off as an arrogant college professor that seemed to waver back and forth on issues. Granted, I don't think any democratic candidate would have won in this part of the world in 2004, but I think a western or midwest democrat would have done better (probably a 20 point loss instead of a 30 point loss). Come to think of it, just about anyone besides Kerry would have been better. I knew several people who voted for Bush, only because they saw him as the lesser of 2 evils at that time.

[Boris]

With the exception of Massachusetts and maybe Maine, any state where Kerry was a particularly good candidate is one where Obama was an even better one.

I'm not sure if Kerry and "particularly good candidate" should be used in the same sentence, but Ohio 2004 was more (D) than the national average, which hasn't been the case since....1972, interestingly enough.

[Nym90]

The "French" factor helped in Maine, too.

[pbrower2a]

***against the national average***

pro-Kerry

AR   18.46
AK   14.09
DC   10.25
LA   9.98
MA   9.89
ME   8.25
OH   7.45
NH   7.08
MN   7
AZ   6.5
WV   6.4
VT   6.02
WY   5.41

anti-Kerry

HI   33.41
IN   14.07
DE   10.17
UT   9.84
NE   9.82
CT   6.41
ND   5.83
NJ   5.31

Obviously, some of these had more to do with home states in other elections (CT, DE, AK, AZ), Bush2004/Obama overperforming (HI), Obama underperforming (AR), and in DC's case, no room to trend Democratic, but does anyone think Kerry was a particularly good or bad candidate for any of these states?

Indiana is the big gain for Obama, and it reflects that it practically gave him the Favorite Son treatment. Finding that Indiana shares much of its media with neighboring states and that Indianapolis is Democratic-leaning he targeted Indiana. He had a strong reputation in parts of Indiana bordering Illinois and had to buy South Bend and Fort Wayne advertising to reach southwestern Michigan (much in doubt through much of the summer) and Ohio (a predictable swing state), As Michigan solidified, Obama's campaign found South Bend advertising useful in Indiana. He campaigned actively in Indiana and took advantage of the complacency of Indiana Republicans. "Our state will never vote for a Democratic Presidential nominee in a close election", or so they thought. They thought wrong -- very wrong.  Hawaii was going to vote for any Democratic nominee in 2008, as was Delaware.     

Kerry was simply a bad campaigner with a flawed strategy. He should have campaigned more aggressively than he did, and he should have tried to win such states where Dubya had no particular advantage that were reasonably close. He could have challenged the intensifying poverty in America as an affront to people who considered themselves moral; he didn't. He should have let John Edwards run as much as a populist as possible -- which would have helped in at least one state in which Dubya might have a weakness. Edwards, a southern populist much out of the mold as Carter and Clinton, might have picked off a southern state or two... let's say either Georgia or a combination of West Virginia and Kentucky.

Kerry's strengths were in New England, which wasn't enough to achieve anything other than to solidify support in New Hampshire. He punted away Iowa and New Mexico, states in which Dubya should have done badly.

Like Gore, he bet everything on one state in which the Republicans had an entrenched machine that was going to do anything to win... and that entrenched machine did everything possible.

Obama tried a 50-state strategy and ended up cutting it back to a thirty-state strategy. After solidifying support in any state that either Gore or Kerry won, he gave up where he had little chance but left several states in contention.   But he left the Republican nominee with plenty of ways to lose and too many targets to defend.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Kerry ran a terrible campaign, pure and simple.  No candidate should ever put all of their eggs into one basket.  There were plenty of other close states where, had Kerry worked a little harder, it's possible he would've won.  By putting most of his resources into Ohio, rather than spreading them out more evenly, he set himself up to fail.

[Franzl]

That's basically the problem, though. If you're not very far ahead naionally, you don't have as many possibilities to win, whether you try a 50 state, 30 state or whatever strategy.

Comparing Obama's campaign strategy (although it was certainly more effective than that of the previous 2 candidates) isn't really that fair, because he enjoyed a 7 point lead nationally.
 
Of course he had more ways to win and fewer to lose. If you're up 7 points nationally...there's hardly any way you can lose the Electoral College.

You're comparing apples and oranges, pbrower.

[pbrower2a]

That's basically the problem, though. If you're not very far ahead naionally, you don't have as many possibilities to win, whether you try a 50 state, 30 state or whatever strategy.

Comparing Obama's campaign strategy (although it was certainly more effective than that of the previous 2 candidates) isn't really that fair, because he enjoyed a 7 point lead nationally.
 
Of course he had more ways to win and fewer to lose. If you're up 7 points nationally...there's hardly any way you can lose the Electoral College.

You're comparing apples and oranges, pbrower.

True.  All electoral campaigns are comparisons of apples and oranges, though.

1. There were times in which Obama had a chance of winning 270 electoral votes with fewer popular votes than John McCain. Obama was then just barely winning a bunch of states that he dared not lose.

2.  Obama ended up 7 points ahead in November after being almost even in September. That results from the economic meltdown in September 2008. Big shifts of votes took place in a short time. Those shifts did not win the election for Obama; they instead made the difference between Obama winning 286 electoral votes (Kerry2004 + IA + NM + CO + VA) and 365 electoral votes. Nevada was a surprise not so much because Obama won it but because he won it with a blowout margin... a blowout margin possible only because of the real-estate meltdown. That is the difference between a close election and a landslide.  Late polls indicated that things were getting worse for McCain/Palin every week. 

... Oddly, Obama under-performed in electoral votes when such are compared to his popular votes.  The states in which he was barely ahead in September 2008 ended up giving him blowout victories. The closest analogue in a popular vote difference between Obama and McCain was FDR versus Dewey in 1944 -- and FDR absolutely blew out Dewey, 432-99 in  electoral votes. FDR won by 7.50% of the popular vote; Obama had a difference of roughly 7.25% and 365-173. Obama would have won the election had he lost 5% of the votes that he won nationwide if spread among the states evenly. FDR would have lost the 1944 election had he lost 5% of the vote in every state.   

OK -- Obama is not FDR and 2008 is not 1944.  But that's what we have with only 25 Presidential elections in a century. 

[Kaine for Senate '18]

FDR's PV totals are very misleading, due to the South.  He beat Dewey 71-16 in the 6th largest state in the country, and broke 70% in 7 states, and got 69.95% in an 8th, all of them in the South.  He only broke 60% in one non-Southern state, getting 60.44% in Utah.  Obama, by contrast, had a much wider spread of big victories.

[Nym90]

Interesting that you bring up 1944. It is probably one of the least analyzed and at first glance one of the least interesting elections in history, certainly at least of the 20th century. However, it was actually far closer than it looked. As you pointed out, a 5 point national swing to Dewey would've given him an electoral victory even though he would've still lost by 2.5 percent in the popular vote. The Electoral College heavily favored Republicans then due to the very large Democratic margins in the South which were unequaled by states on the Republican side. There were not very many solidly Republican states during this time, however, so FDR's victory ends up looking a lot bigger than it actually was especially in terms of the electoral vote count as FDR won many states by narrow margins.

So even though FDR's margin in both the popular and electoral vote was larger than Obama's, he was actually much closer to losing the election than Obama. It would've taken over a 9 point uniform national swing to McCain to bring him victory (in 2008 the Electoral College favored Democrats, as Obama would've still won even if he had lost the popular vote by 1 percent), whereas Dewey only required a 5 point swing.

There's a tendency to just assume this was another preordained FDR landslide, but it was actually a pretty competitive election. A 5 point national swing is not that much, really.

[Nym90]

Dewey wins 267-264 with this map, produced by a 5.01 percent uniform swing to Dewey. The key state that decides the election is, appropriately, New York, the home state of both candidates. Actually a uniform swing would've given Dewey Oregon, New Hampshire, and Idaho as well for a 281-250 win despite a 2.5 percent popular vote loss, but he doesn't actually need to win any of those three states which were all closer than New York.

On the other hand McCain, due to the Dem control of the House, needs a 9.53 percent uniform swing to win with this map, 276-262 (or 275-263 if he doesn't flip NE-02 which he doesn't need, but would win with a uniform swing). Iowa is the critical state, since Obama wins in the event of a 269-269 tie if he carries it. McCain actually needed to win the popular vote by 2.26 percent to produce this victory scenario.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Interesting that you bring up 1944. It is probably one of the least analyzed and at first glance one of the least interesting elections in history, certainly at least of the 20th century. However, it was actually far closer than it looked. As you pointed out, a 5 point national swing to Dewey would've given him an electoral victory even though he would've still lost by 2.5 percent in the popular vote. The Electoral College heavily favored Republicans then due to the very large Democratic margins in the South which were unequaled by states on the Republican side. There were not very many solidly Republican states during this time, however, so FDR's victory ends up looking a lot bigger than it actually was especially in terms of the electoral vote count as FDR won many states by narrow margins.

So even though FDR's margin in both the popular and electoral vote was larger than Obama's, he was actually much closer to losing the election than Obama. It would've taken over a 9 point uniform national swing to McCain to bring him victory (in 2008 the Electoral College favored Democrats, as Obama would've still won even if he had lost the popular vote by 1 percent), whereas Dewey only required a 5 point swing.

There's a tendency to just assume this was another preordained FDR landslide, but it was actually a pretty competitive election. A 5 point national swing is not that much, really.

Both of FDR's victories in the 1940's were closer than they appear.  Even though FDR won by 10% in 1940, he only broke 60% in 3 non-Southern states (AZ, NV, and UT).  He broke 70% in 9 Southern states, and got 67% in TN and 68% in VA.  In the 6th largest state in the country, FDR got 80.9% of the vote, which skews the results significantly.  Wilkie didn't break 60% in any state.  It would've taken a uniform 8% swing for Wilkie to win the election, with PA being the deciding state when it switched to Wilkie.