JUSIPER

 
Another look at the electoral map

Posted by Sini

By Poblano at Kos:

For the time being -- and that is an important caveat, because these numbers may be changing even as we speak -- Obama has at least a 15% advantage in win percentage over Clinton in 18 states totaling 113 electoral votes:

Virginia (13), Washington (11), Wisconsin (10), Minnesota (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (7), Connecticut (7), Oregon (7), New Mexico (5), Nevada (5), Nebraska (5), New Hampshire (4) Maine (4), Hawaii (4), Alaska (3), North Dakota (3), South Dakota (3), Montana (3)

And Clinton has at least a 15% advantage over Obama in five states totaling 64 electoral votes:

Florida (27), New Jersey (15), Tennessee (11), Arkansas (6), West Virginia (5)

For Clinton to win an electability argument based on the polls, she'd have to be much more likely than Obama to win states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, California and New York. But presently, that is not what the numbers show; the Democrats either perform about equally in those states (as in Ohio and Pennsylvania), or the states are unlikely to be contested in a competitive election (as in California -- where Obama is actually outpolling her -- or New York).

Clinton, certainly, can make other sorts of electability arguments not based on the polls -- but those are really the only arguments available to her for right now. And one argument she can't make is to point reflexively to the primary results; we have a robust enough set of general election polling now that such arguments are out of date.

8:42 AM |