While we wait for tonight’s returns from the final two Democratic primaries, in Montana and South Dakota, here are a few maps that suggest the strengths and weaknesses of Barack Obama in states thAt have already held primaries. (Caucus states, among them Alaska and Hawaii, are not included because they attract far fewer voters and […]
Presidential election 2008
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
Will the Electoral College even matter?
It’s fun to check in on the latest electoral vote projections, all of which show a close race between Barack Obama and John McCain (see Electoral-Vote.com and FiveThirtyEight.com). But the odds are good that the Electoral College will be a moot point, and that someone will win the popular vote by enough to avoid a […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Is Ferraro helping to lay the groundwork for Hillary Clinton’s 2012 campaign?
In today’s Boston Globe, former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro proposes a formal study on whether sexism hurt Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign: …a group of women – from corporate executives to academics to members of the media – have requested that the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University and others conduct a study, which we […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Complete county-by-county primary results (so far)
For real election obsessives, I’ve posted an Excel spreadsheet with complete primary results so far: Download 2008primariesbycountyasofMay27.xls (1181.5K) Not surprisingly, it is a very large file and may take a while to download. I will be posting maps from the data after the final primaries, in Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Disclaimers below: […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Is Menino sticking out his neck for Hillary?
The Boston Globe‘s Political Intelligence blog is reporting today that nearly 50 Massachusetts supporters of the pro-choice group NARAL have signed a letter asking that the organization retract its recent endorsement of Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. "We believe NARAL’s endorsement was not only the wrong one, but entirely premature," the letter states, according to […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
What about Snowe?
Survey USA has released 17 different polls on how well John McCain and Barack Obama would do in Pennsylvania with different running mates. Not surprisingly, Obama does best when paired with the high-name-recognition John Edwards and with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. The oddest questions involve a scenario with Obama picking a Republican, Nebraska Sen. Chuck […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Elaboration, please: Sexist attacks on Hillary
The Boston Globe’s Joan Vennochi has a typically clear-eyed column on the refusal by many of Hillary Clinton’s female supporters to concede the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But one paragraph warrants elaboration: The final book on the 2008 presidential campaign will record a great deal of gender bias. The Hillary Nutcracker, a product […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Elitist Republicans, rube Democrats
Over the past few decades, Democratic presidential candidates have done increasingly well in urban areas and Republicans have strengthened their hold over rural areas. The map below shows the major exceptions to this trend in 2004, showing which counties were both significantly more urban and more Republican than the national average, or more rural and […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Obama’s rural peaks and valleys
As other bloggers have noted (see Al Giordano), Barack Obama’s weakness among rural voters seems most pronounced along the Appalachian Mountains, though the map below suggests that the anti-Obama region extends farther west to take in Oklahoma and northern Texas. West Virginia, which went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton last week, seems to represent the absolute […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
State of the Race: May 15
The Boston Phoenix‘s Steven Stark says that if the presidential election were held today, Barack Obama and John McCain would each get 269 electoral votes, throwing the election into the House of Representatives. Stark arrives at this conclusion by replicating the 2000 election map and shifting just one state, moving Colorado to the Democrats. The […]