Obama's Coattails! - - - Senate States: Advantage Obama

[jefferson_dem]

Senate States: Advantage Obama
by poblano
Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 12:39:56 AM PST

There has been an increasing about of back-and-forth about the meaning of victories in various primary and caucus states. Do blue states matter more than red states? Do a couple of big states matter more than a large number of little states?

These arguments, of course, are mostly just static to fill the nervous void until the next wave of primary results comes along. After all, the Democratic Party has come up with an ingenuous way to keep score: they are called delegates, and they are allocated in such a way that they will essentially reflect the relative share of the popular vote in all officially-sanctioned contests around the country.

However, there are other respects in which some states do potentially matter more than others. One is in the electoral math for the general election. If one candidate were performing systematically better in swing states than another, that might be an argument to nominate them. But both candidates have had their share of successes and failures in these contests -- Obama winning Missouri, Iowa and Colorado; Clinton winning Nevada and Florida -- so it is hard to make a case one way or another on these states.

Another set of important states, however, has to do with the locations in which we are liable to have the most competitive Senate races. And these states obey a different set of rules. For one thing, Senate seats are of course allocated two men (or women) per state, regardless of population size. So in the case of the Senate, a lot of little states really do count more than a couple of big states. For another thing, this political cycle will be unique in that we are on offense, and that Senate contests will take place almost entirely on red and purple turf.

<SNIP>

The Cook Political Report currently projects that 12 Senate races will be at least reasonably competitive: 10 in which we're playing offense, and 2 in which we're playing defense. Certainly, some people here would like to add a couple of other states like Idaho to that list, but we'll go with Cook's list for the time being.

Here are those 12 states. You should begin to detect a pattern here relatively quickly.

Alaska. Obama won overwhelmingly.
Colorado. Obama won overwhelmingly.
Louisiana. Obama won overwhelmingly.
Maine. Obama won overwhelmingly.
Minnesota. Obama won overwhelmingly.
Mississippi. No contest yet; Obama favored.
Nebraska. Obama won overwhelmingly.
New Hampshire. Clinton won narrowly.
New Mexico. Still unresolved; Clinton likely to win narrowly.
Oregon. No contest yet; Obama favored.
South Dakota. No contest yet; Obama favored.
Virginia. No contest yet; Obama favored.

Obama has already won 6 out of the 12 contests by double digits, and is the heavy favorite to win four others. Clinton narrowly won New Hampshire, and will probably hang on to win New Mexico. To get a bit more quantitative about this...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/11/1165/53154/247/454354

[Blue State Bandit]

1. SHWING!