Mississippi Democratic Primary Meaningless Coffeehousing Thread

Columbia is in Missouri. Columbus is in Mississippi despite what the Obama campaign's flickrmaster wrote today. Discuss.

These polls make no sense. Based on 2004 exit polls, roughly 75% of Democratic Presidential voters in Mississippi are African-American. The polls have shown African-Americans making up about 55% of the primary electorate. Let's be generous and take the midpoint at 65%. Assuming Barack Obama takes the black vote 90-10 and loses the white vote 25-75, that gives him a 67-33 win. Counting the delegates, it could be anywhere between 25-8 and 20-13, with 22-11 still the most likely scenario.

Comments

[low-tech cyclist]

I've been thinking the same thing, Nick: in a state that's 38% black, and goes GOP by 60-40 in Presidential elections, the Dem primary electorate should theoretically be pretty overwhelmingly black. I'd really like to know what I'm missing.

On another note, should we political junkies check into Betty Ford en masse tomorrow morning? Given six weeks without a single primary, the withdrawal symptoms could get pretty severe.

[Ron]

Yeah, the polls are too low. Obama should win by close to a 2:1 margin. I'm hoping the Michigan re-vote is scheduled sometime in the next 6 weeks. 6 weeks without a primary it too long!

[low-tech cyclist]

With respect to the delegate split, don't forget the delegate distribution: 11 statewide, 7 in the heavily black district, and 5 each in the majority-white districts.

Your scenario gets Obama a 7-4 split of the statewide delegates, probably a 6-1 majority of the 7-delegate district, and let's say Clinton manages to win majorities in two of the other three. That adds up to 20-13.

But I'm wary that the pollsters know something we don't in terms of likely white participation in the Dem primary today. I'd like to know why they're expecting a lot more of it than we are, before I dismiss the possibility.

[Ari]

If Obama wins by close to 2:1 today, which seems likely, I wonder if the six-week lull might kill the Clinton campaign. Because if you think we're political junkies (if I may be so bold as to use the collective pronoun), you should see the people for whom politics is a meal ticket. Including, one assumes, the vast majority of the superdelegates. For those folks, a six-week break isn't going to be easy. And I wonder if they're going to want some action. Certainly they will want to begin working against McCain. And working against whichever downticket Republican they'll face in the fall. If that's the case, if the party muckety-mucks start to get antsy, today could be the beginning of the end. Or not.

[John]

25% may be too high a share of the white vote for Obama. I'd give him 20%. 20-13 seems like a likely split, but he may do worse if black turnout is not high, or if he does particularly badly in the white vote.

[ikl]

The thing about the delegate math here is that the difference between Obama +1 and Obama +11 could be less than 10%. Obama 55%-45% would probably go Obama +1 whereas Obama 65%-35% would likely go Obama +11. Makes me kind of worried about this primary. I wonder if team Obama underinvested here. The main paper in Jackson excepts lowish turnout - 125,000 to 150,000. Hard to say who that helps. But whoever it helps, Obama could still have done better by increasing African-American turnout. If the 2004 exit polls are to be believed, African-Americans are only very slightly less likely to vote than whites in MS.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

That rural votes thing is just silly. It assumes a huge number of white Democrats that don't exist. If you go by CD, in districts 1 and 4, 30% of Kerry voters were white. In 2 and 3, less and 0% of Kerry voters were white, which probably means there are some black Republicans or blacks are not turning out proportionally to their share of the population. If we assume that instead of the racial split being 80/20, it's 60/40 for the primary, it's still looking grim. If all the white voters are in MS-1 and MS-4, she might be able to eke-out 51-49 wins if she gets 75% of whites and 15% of blacks. But in that case Obama's going to get a 6-1 split in MS-2.

The worst case scenario is that Obama goes 2-3, 5-2, 3-2, 2-3, plus a 4-3/2-2 for the statewide delegates. That gives Obama +2, but I'm highly skeptical that's going to happen. I think 3-2, 5-2, 4-1, 3-2, with a 5-2/3-1 split is the most likely. 4-1, 6-1, 4-1, 4-1, with a 5-2/3-1 split isn't entirely impossible.

[low-tech cyclist]

The question, Nick, is do you have to be a Dem voter in November 2004 to be a likely Dem primary voter in March 2008? Rasmussen's poll came up 53-39 Obama, by way of an 80-12 majority among blacks, and a 22-69 deficit among whites. The end result seems to assume 53% of the primary electorate being black.

[Shock Mouse]

Yes, I love the part in the IA polls where Obama gets only 75% of the African American vote. Hillary hasn't done that well in that demographic since, well NY obviously. But otherwise, non.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

She got 25% in Arkansas.

LTC: that's true. But even if you up the Dem performance among whites to 27% (which would give Democrats the state!), you're talking about maybe 40% of the electorate. And even when you do that it's a big win for Obama. I also think the disparity of living standards between blacks and whites in Mississippi is leading to some serious undercounting as well, as it did in Virginia and South Carolina.

[ikl]

MS is an open primary remember. And lots of white folks in the south vote Republican for President but sometimes vote for Democrats in local races - Gene Taylor is a Dem Rep from MS 4th which is over 75% white.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

I'm still not buying. I should place a bet with my readers somehow.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

erm. our readers.

[low-tech cyclist]

It's not like I'm particularly sure about Rasmussen's numbers, or the conclusions Al Giordano's deriving from them.

Where I am is that, despite having the same basic intuition as you - that blacks should be the overwhelming majority of the primary electorate today - I know pollsters such as Rasmussen probably have some idea of what they're doing, and I'm hesitant to bet against them.

If I knew why they were assuming that blacks would only be a slight majority of today's primary electorate, I could say, sure, that makes sense, or I could say that it makes no sense at all. But without that missing piece, I can't come down on either side, really.

But I'm gonna take a WAG and say Obama wins on delegates, 19-14.

[cyndeewi]

Why do everyone have to always talk about the african american vote. Should it matter the population. Wyoming is not a black State and Obama won. Enough with the black vote.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Well, it matters in Mississippi. It obviously matters less in Wisconsin.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Okay, well, looks I'm going to get to eat some crow. CNN has under 30s 67-32 for Obama, over 65 56-44 for Clinton. The midpoint there is 56-44 for Obama. Now, in Alabama, 65+ voters were much less pro-Bama than even 44-59 voters. I guess it depends on the age break down; AL was only 38% under 45, while GA was 47%. It could be anywhere between 56-44 and 60-40.

[John]

I'd imagine that age breakdown is closer to Alabama than to Georgia.

[low-tech cyclist]

And this from AP:

Blacks, who have supported Obama in overwhelming numbers in earlier primaries, accounted for roughly half the ballots cast in Mississippi, according to interviews with voters leaving polling places.

Nearly one in five Democratic primary voters called himself an independent. About one in 10 was Republican.

Wonder if they'll ask, in the exit polls, who they voted for in 2004.

[low-tech cyclist]

MSNBC's exit poll makes it look like it's going to be touch-and-go as to whether the statewide delegates break 6-5 or 7-4 for Obama. If I've got the idea right, he needs to win by 18.18...%. (Yes, I love infinite repeating decimals.)

The exit polls show that 13% of the Dem primary voters were Republicans, and they voted for Clinton by a 78-22 margin, which means Obama got well over 60% among Dems and independents.

I'm happy to have independents and Republicans vote in the Democratic primary if it's a first step towards potentially voting Dem in November. But it's hard for me to believe that most of those GOP Hillary voters intend to vote Democratic in the fall, regardless of who the Dems nominate. I expect they're just heeding Rush's directive to cross party lines and throw a monkeywrench in the works.

[Sir Charles]

l-t c.

Bringing the scary number nerd to the comments section. You and Nick are a formidable pair.

What can you do with the $5,500 Spitzer number is what I want to know?