Eight years ago, George W. Bush and his Republican establishment backers convinced the party’s masses that he was the most electable candidate—even though polls showed John McCain running up to 20 points better than Bush against Al Gore.
The Bushies shouted about his dominance over McCain in primaries in the most solidly Republican states, arguing that this somehow made him the better bet for the fall. And the party faithful bought it, too, a decision that wound up one last-ditch Supreme Court ruling away from blowing up in their faces.
Now Hillary Clinton and her backers are trying to make the same sale to Democrats, arguing—in the face of clear and overwhelming evidence to the contrary—that the 16 primary and caucus victories she has notched somehow prove that she is better positioned to defeat John McCain in the fall.
“We all know that if we want a Democratic president, we need a Democratic nominee who can win Democratic states, just like Ohio,” Clinton said in her victory speech on Tuesday. “And that is what we’ve done. We’ve won Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Arkansas, California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. And today we won Rhode Island.”
Leave aside the fact that not all of these are “Democratic states” and that Clinton’s claims to Florida and (especially) Michigan are more than slightly dubious.
The point of the Clinton spin is that Obama owes his success in this primary season to big margins in small Republican states that he’ll never carry in the fall, while Clinton has won states that are essential to the party’s hopes of beating McCain.
This argument is problematic.
In disparaging Obama’s victories in states like North Dakota and Alaska, the Clinton campaign conveniently ignores his success in numerous general-election battleground states: Missouri, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, for instance.
Wackier still is the suggestion that the reliably Democratic states that Clinton has won will, for some unknown reason, not vote for Obama in the fall if he is the nominee. They will, absent a Reaganesque landslide for the Republicans (which won’t be happening this year). Massachusetts, where Obama lost, will remain a safe bet for the Democrats if he is the nominee, just as Maryland, which Obama won, will be in the bag for the party if Clinton is the nominee.
But by far the most glaring issue with the Clinton spin is this: Even in the states where she won primaries and caucuses, she is still doing worse in head-to-head matchups with McCain—sometimes substantially worse—than Obama.
This is easily explained. In primaries, Clinton may edge out Obama among Democratic voters in these states, but virtually all of these Democratic voters will support either candidate in the general election. The difference is that Obama commands a much bigger chunk of the independent and Republican vote in many of these states—something that hasn’t been enough to get him over the top in the primaries but that can make a measurable difference in the fall. Therefore, Clinton’s success in the spring actually says very little about her chances of winning the same states in the fall.
Consider Nevada and New Mexico, two states where she narrowly beat Obama. She mentioned both in her victory speech on Tuesday, holding them up as evidence of her supposedly superior electability. But in a poll conducted last week, Clinton trails McCain by 12 points in New Mexico, while Obama runs dead even with him. The contrast is even more jarring in Nevada, where Clinton runs 12 points behind McCain, while Obama leads the Republican by nine—a swing of 21 points.
The same phenomenon is evident in other states where Clinton has defeated Obama. In New Hampshire, where independents constitute a giant chunk of the fall electorate, she leads McCain by two points, well within the margin of error; Obama’s lead is 13 points. In Michigan, where Clinton won a primary in which Obama’s name wasn’t on the ballot, she is tied with McCain; Obama runs eight points ahead. In California, a poll last week put Clinton up by two points; Obama’s advantage is seven. Even in Arizona, a state that will be conceded to the G.O.P. with McCain on the ballot, the contrast is stark: Clinton loses by 24 points in the most recent poll, while Obama trails by just 11.
In other states that Clinton has won, no measurable general-election difference is evident. An Ohio poll last week gave Obama a one-point lead over McCain, while Clinton trailed by four—a discrepancy that was within the margin of error. In Tennessee, Clinton performed slightly better against McCain, losing by only seven points to Obama’s 12. And in Pennsylvania—a state whose primary Clinton should win next month—one recent poll showed Obama ahead of McCain by 10 points, with Clinton trailing by two; another had them both statistically tied with the Republican.
In fairness, there are three Clinton states where she also has a clear general-election advantage. In Florida, where Obama’s perceived snub of the state’s outlaw primary seems to have cost him dearly, she runs significantly better against McCain, as she also does in Arkansas (where she was the state’s first lady for 12 years) and New Jersey (her backyard as a New York senator and a state that tends to flirt with Republican candidates early while almost always returning to the Democratic fold on Election Day).
And all this is to say nothing of the gaping general-election disparities in states whose primaries Clinton hasn’t won. A recent poll has Obama tied with McCain in Virginia, with Clinton trailing by 10 points. In Colorado, Obama’s general-election lead is seven points, while Clinton runs 14 points behind McCain. In Minnesota, Clinton runs 11 points worse than Obama against McCain. And even in dark-red Kansas, Obama trailed McCain by just six points in one recent survey, compared to Clinton’s 24-point deficit.
Hillary Clinton has won her primary victories fair and square, and it’s only normal that she try to make the most of them. But in terms of the general election, they mean nothing.
