THE PLANK JUNE 13, 2008
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The Republicans have given every signal of wanting to make a play for
Minnesota. Their convention will be held in St. Paul, and Tim Pawlenty
is perhaps the odds-on favorite to become John McCain's Vice
Presidential nominee. There just isn't much indication, however, that
the state is liable to be competitive. Rasmussen's
newest poll in Minnesota has Barack Obama leading John McCain by 13
points. This is technically not a bounce: Obama led by 12 and 13 points
in Rasmussen's April and May polls, respectively. But Minnesota also
does not appear to be close enough where little things like the
selection of Pawlenty as McCain's running mate would matter (I'm
sitting on some research about this, but the home state advantage of a
VP selection is not all that it's cracked up to be). Indeed, the entire
Northwest quadrant of the country -- draw a line from the southern tip
of Illinois everywhere northward and westward -- has polled extremely
well for Barack Obama, both absolutely and relative to John Kerry.Rasmussen also has polling out in North Carolina,
where John McCain holds on to a slim 2-point advantage. This result is
not entirely surprising, as several polling firms have shown North
Carolina within the margin of error at some point in the cycle. Barack
Obama has every reason to give North Carolina a try -- the Research
Triangle portion of the state might go for him 3:2 or even 2:1. But at
some point, he's going to want to show an actual lead in the polling
there, lest it become a tease state like the Republicans have had with
New Jersey.In Oklahoma, a Research 2000 / DailyKos
poll has John McCain leading by 14 points. This might actually be
Obama's best result of the day, as other Oklahoma polling had shown
McCain ahead by as many as 40 points. Obama won't win Oklahoma, but the
internals of the survey -- which show a bare plurality of Oklahomans
identifying their party ID as Democrat -- are a reminder of just how
difficult the partisan landscape is for John McCain.Finally, I wanted to announce that FiveThirtyEight will be partnering with Rasmussen Reports
and providing them with our state-by-state averages for inclusion in
their Balance of Power Calculations. Between that and my appearance on
CNN a bit earlier (video if and when it becomes available), I'm
starting out my day pretty wired.
--Nate Silver
6 comments
Minnesota is certainly a different state politically than it was in the heyday of the Democratic Farmer-Laborer Party but it should still be a walk for Obama in November.
- liberal reformer
June 13, 2008 at 11:15am
I could see the GOP coming to terms with their impending November doom (unless of course their is an October Surprise) and using Minnesota as Scorched Earth to hold onto Coleman's senate seat. But that might be their only realistic incentive.
- dylanposer
June 13, 2008 at 12:00pm
*there is an October surprise*
"Uh, waiter, another coffee, please!"
- dylanposer
June 13, 2008 at 12:08pm
This whole "swing state" analysis needs to be overhauled. MN is better termed a "blowout state" (I'm stealing this from Chuck Todd, who is the best on TV at political mechanics). I.e., if MN votes for McCain, he's going to win a huge national victory that approaches 1988 levels. Hell, if MN is even close, Obama will have almost certainly lost WI, IA and MI -- each of which are similar and have lower D-perf numbers. The country is fairly homogenized politically (increasingly more so) and trends carry across state boundaries. MO or IN is probably the Rebublican equivalent (a reprise of the 1996 results); victories there almost certainly means that Obama will have also carried OH and the other key midwestern states. Ditto for NC -- it almost certainly forecasts victories in VA and FL.
It's fantasyland to play with the map and speculate that Obama will lose MN and NM but win OH and MO; it simply isn't going to happen. Cable pundits are particularly egrigious in this regard, especially when trying to engineer a 269-269 EV tie or otherwise predict a nailbiting finish. "Swing states" should be limited to those that could legitimately break in either direction in a close election (OH, NH) or those that for whatever reason might not follow a broader national trend (say, a VP candidate). Alternatively, you can argue that different regions/demographics of the country may break at cross-purposes (black turnout in the South, latino numbers in the SW, Reagan Ds in the industrial midwest) and therefore each area has swing states and blowout states.
Anyway, to make a long story short, MN is not a swing state by any reasonable definition.
- prnoonan
June 13, 2008 at 12:10pm
Being a Minnesotan, I've never understood why it's considered a swing state every four years. Has anyone looked at the voting history? We voted for Dukakis in 88! Mondale in 84! NO state is more reliably blue in presidential elections than Minnesota, Massachusetts included.
The GOP is wasting their time putting the RNC in St. Paul and picking Pawlenty. Their only chance of any positive outcome in Minnesota in November is Coleman, who would lose to ANY Democrat who can blink and shake hands, except for Al Franken, against whom Norm has a shot.
- achester99
June 13, 2008 at 12:29pm
wow, between baseball prospectus, fivethirthtyeight.com, and now the plank, nate silver is really everywhere...
- sprechs
June 13, 2008 at 4:21pm