ELECTIONATE JUNE 21, 2012
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In 2008, Obama won North Carolina by less than 1 percent while winning by 7 percent nationally. After four years, Obama’s big national lead has vanished, but Obama and Romney are spending away in the populous and diverse mid-Atlantic state. According to the Washington Post’s ad-tracker, the two campaigns spent $1.7 million in North Carolina last week, similar to the other big battleground states like Florida ($1.8m), Ohio ($1.9m), and Virginia ($1.5m). The FiveThirtyEight tipping point state index, designed to estimate the chance that a state might prove decisive in a tight national election, judges North Carolina nearer to New Jersey than any competitive state. So why are the campaigns pouring millions into the Tar Heel State? The answer lies in the state’s unique demographic profile, which creates scenarios where Obama might need to win North Carolina in the event of a close national election.
The current national polling outlines the demographic contours of a closely contested race: Obama would hold most of his non-white support from 2008, but suffer big losses among white voters, and particularly white working class voters. If one averages the demographic subtotals from the most recent Pew and Gallup polls and weights them to 2008 turnout, Obama would hold 49 percent of the vote—just what he would hold in the event of a tied election. There is no guarantee that the electorate looks just like 2008, and Obama’s share of the vote based on current polling changes with the composition of the electorate. Today, the Obama campaign indicated that whites would make up just 72 percent of the electorate this year, down from 74 percent in 2008. That is certainly possible, but so is decreased youth and African American turnout rates along with a surge of conservative white voters who didn’t participate in 2008.
Given the national polls, a closely contested election would entail unusual polarization along racial/ethnic lines. In that context, North Carolina could play a critical role in a close national election. As a general rule, Obama should hold firm in states where Obama’s political fortunes are least dependent on the support of whites, and particularly working class whites, and suffer big losses in states where Obama was heavily dependent on whites without a college degree. Of all the battleground states, Obama’s coalition in North Carolina is the least dependent on white voters and the second least dependent on support from the white working class: 50 percent of Obama’s supporters in North Carolina were African American and only 27 percent of his supporters were whites without a college degree. The same demographic characteristics that potentially make North Carolina resilient to the national headwind eroding Obama’s support nationally also make Obama vulnerable to big losses in the Upper Midwest. Obama’s support in Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio is overwhelmingly white, and nearly 50 percent of his 2008 supporters were whites without a college degree.
Is there a scenario where Obama loses so much support among working class whites that he loses Iowa and Wisconsin, but remains strong enough among college educated whites and blacks to compensate with a win North Carolina? Obama could certainly lose upper Midwestern states, but the challenge for Obama is that even minor losses in North Carolina would be sufficient to flip the state, since Obama won by just 14,177 votes four years ago. However, there are countervailing demographic forces that could counteract, even if not overcome, Obama’s losses among white working class voters. Northern professionals continue to flock to the burgeoning Raleigh-Durham metropolitan area, even if at a lesser pace than the explosive growth experienced prior to the financial crisis. North Carolina’s youth is more diverse than the rest of the state, and four more years of young voters will tend to produce a more diverse electorate. The Democratic National Convention will be in Charlotte, which might help the Obama campaign organize their ground operation.
There is also a chance that Obama might hold more of his support among white working class voters in North Carolina than other states. As mentioned before, white working class voters are far more diverse than the media portrays, and it is hard to say exactly which white working class voters are heading for Romney, let alone where. State polling and Quinnipiac probably provide the best clues. State polls show a close race in Upper Midwestern states that voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. In contrast, Obama seems to be holding on among white voters in North Carolina and Virginia. Quinnipiac’s state polling shows Obama bleeding white working class voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Florida, but not in Virginia, where an overwhelmingly southern white working class cohort offered relatively little support to Obama in 2008. Given that the two campaigns are competing in North Carolina, it seems reasonable to assume that a similar phenomenon might have taken hold in the Tar Heel State.
The scenario where North Carolina proves pivotal is not hard to imagine. If the non-white share of the electorate increases in 2012, then a tied national election would entail further Obama losses among white voters beyond those already incurred and Romney consolidating the entire undecided white vote. In such a scenario, Ohio would race into the GOP column as Romney mops up disaffected white voters, while Wisconsin and Iowa would stand as hotly contested toss-ups, perhaps even tilting Republican on election day. The same demographic changes propelling the non-white share of the electorate higher nationally would have an outsized effect in diverse and growing North Carolina, allowing Obama to compensate for modest losses among the third of white working class voters who preferred him in 2008. If Obama lost Wisconsin and Iowa, or even Iowa and Michigan, a win in North Carolina would put Obama back over 270. While this scenario might seem outlandish to those accustomed to the red-blue divides of the Bush era, polls suggest it is possible, explaining why North Carolina is contested and how it could prove crucial in a tight race.
6 comments
There may be "a surge of conservative white voters who didn’t participate in 2008", but it's quite possible that they will be surging in states where their votes for President won't really matter (either because the state is reliably Democratic, like California or New York, or reliably Republican like Texas or Oklahoma). After all, the 2008 race was not a closely fought contest in many such places so there was little incentive for Republicans to turn out conservatives marooned in enemy territory, or those in states where McCain was going to win no matter what. Given Obama's huge money advantage, McCain had to spend his in a handful of swing states just to keep up. And, in those states, conservatives were certainly driven to vote in 2008 by plentiful campaign rallies, TV and radio ads, direct mailers and GOTV efforts. Obviously, some of them chose not to vote because of their distrust of John McCain or dissatisfaction with GW Bush and the financial crash; apparently, this may have been enough to cause a state like Indiana to go Democratic for the first time in decades. On the other hand, how many such people would go to the polls in November given their potential distrust of Mitt Romney or dissatisfaction with Congressional Republicans' failure to do things like overturn Obamacare, eliminate illegal immigration or extract major reductions in Federal spending in exchange for raising the debt ceiling? Perhaps not that many more than went to the polls in 2008.
- wildboy
June 21, 2012 at 5:47pm
Color me skeptical. I've just been playing with an interactive electoral map, and if you assume that Obama will not win NC without also taking VA--a safe assumption, I think, since of the two, Carolina is much more of a stretch for BHO--the only way NC becomes pivotal is if Obama loses Ohio plus either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin and Iowa. I just can't imagine a scenario where Obama wins NC and loses any of those other much more reliably Democratic states.
- AaronW
June 22, 2012 at 5:35am
Aaron's right, the only way NC matters is if Obama loses Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio, but wins Virginia. Seems unlikely. But Obama could win NC. Recent polls only put Romney up a few points. Plus Obama is a basketball nut, and Romney appears clueless about "sport." That will be the difference!
- polcereal
June 22, 2012 at 2:58pm
I think Aaron and polcereal are missing the forest for the leaves. A political theory professor I had at dartmouth once said, election day is just a single sampling, and a poor one at that. it's important to remember that we're as likely to have an anomalous result in one state as in any other. the larger point here, and for anyone from the southeast this will ring true, North Carolina has been changing like smaller islands in the south like Asheville, Athens (GA) and the city of Atlanta into islands of liberalism, and the Carolinas get retirees from NJ and MA, young who can't find work in the more expensive NE states, as well as a 15-year phenomenon of "half-back" migration from FL--Northerners who moved to FL and then decided they did not like it and moved half way back north. Hippies in Asheville and Wilmington, white collar workers in RDU. Several of high school teachers from PBC and dad's former secretaries who couldn't afford WPB, Boca Raton (Palm Beach and Broward Co. anymore) picked up and moved to Charlotte years ago. Their state pensions go farther there and the pace of life is laid back, economy (was) dynamite, like South Florida in the 1970s-80s. Granted Charlotte was a banking town hit hard in 2009-09, but only made it more attainable for retiring schoolteachers (if they could sell their homes in FL) is certainly not depressed like Youngstown or Allentown. The point of the article is that the professionals+minorities in VA & NC balance out the urban workers of the northern cities. I think it's a plausible scenario that will demand a lot of fundraising and nhood organizing. A lot of this also comes down to turnout or weather, and the weather in rural NC will prob bode better for turnout than in the Upper Midwest in the late autumn. They used to say if it rained or sleeted in the northern states, the Republican wins because Democrats won't go out; Republicans get in their cars. It's nice to see the Democrats stopped letting their urban prejudices make them lazy are start to realize there's a country out there in which it is incumbent on them to sell their ideas, not just write off vast sections of the country. If a womanizer like Harold Ford Jr can get elected in Tennessee, Obama can pull off NC and VA again, which by the way, the upper south has historically been more open, and egg-head Gore, taking advice from his beautiful but sheltered ivy league/new england prep school educated daughters (with cute manhattan jewish husbands!) hadn't written off the south, and trotted out bill clinton after "the kiss"to all these regional and small-sized cities, stayed connected with his "people," so to speak like Obama has done or tried to do with all people, we'd never be in this mess. The president's job is to connect with the people, and if he can't, or can't figure out how to influence public opinion fast enough like Kerry with Swiftboats and his savvy girl next door (literally--from NH) Jeanne Shaheen, frankly maybe he shouldn't be president. That's the job of being a democratically elected world leader. It would make things a whole lot easier if it weren't so, tho wouldn't it? Like in China where the leaders laugh, follow the leads of each other (staying "harmonious") and make toasts to each other with baijiu; to wealth, to the future, maybe wishing, holding all this collective power, that they had enjoyed better dental health. (That's what happens when you brush with green tea.)
- brp1056
June 22, 2012 at 3:45pm
brp, I lived in Durham, NC for 8 years and still vote there (I don't live in the US). I fully agree with everything you've written about the changing character of Carolina, and I also agree that Obama can win the state in November. I just don't see how he can win Carolina while simultaneously losing the northern Midwest, which has to happen for NC to be the "tipping point".
- AaronW
June 22, 2012 at 6:44pm
Durham is an Obama stronghold. In 08 they kept reminding us that our turnout could make up for the more conservative (mostly) rural parts of the state and there were several staging areas on election day since the Obama headquarters couldn't hold all the volunteers. This year the Obama HQ is much larger, well staffed, and they have already registered several thousand new voters. I have no idea what the Romney organization looks like here. Agree with most of brp1056's comments about the changing southeast. If you care about the outcome of the election, there's plenty you can do right now to help influence it by registering, canvassing, data entry, etc.
- s.trabka@frontier.com-old
June 22, 2012 at 7:34pm