http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/road-to-270-utah.html"What McCain Has Going For Him
When you start out with a 3-1 edge in R to D self-identification, you’re only going to lose if you lose every state. Utah, of course, is heavily Mormon/LDS, which tracks with Republican voting. McCain almost equaled Obama in fundraising per capita, and low unemployment indicates voters here may be more satisfied relative to other voters on the economic front. Given the current economic crisis, that's a purely relative statement.
What Obama Has Going For Him
Barack Obama did well in the caucus here in February, but a big part of that was Hillary Clinton's anathema status in the Mountain West over gun control as well as her campaign’s decision to cede the field. Utah has the most youth voters in the country, and the 2d fewest elderly. Ordinarily that would help Obama. Utah is not a high military veteran state, a statistic that would tend to favor Republicans, and it’s fairly well educated, which favors Democrats. Utah also has a fairly high percentage of same-sex households. That’s about the best you can say for Obama’s chances in the demographic and socioeconomic data.
What To Watch For
That's a tough one. Like Rhode Island yesterday, there's basically zero drama in Utah with the presidential and all three House races locked into a clear result, and I can't quite bring myself to feign interest in the NBA with a Utah Jazz reference. Will Barack Obama get 50.6% of the undecideds in Utah? The state is one of the explicit 50-state strategy targets, and some Democratic insiders hated Howard Dean's attempt to send staffers to train on ground activists in every corner of the nation. That, of course, was a long-term strategy, and in Utah might be a multi-decade arc if it happens at all. The bottom line with Utah this year is the way volunteers from the state will fan out into neighboring Nevada and Colorado, two of the most intense battlegrounds of the cycle."
Darn. Guess we're not going to win Utah. ;)
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