What West Virginia Tells Us About Obama In November
I imagine that the Obama camp is trying pretty furiously right now the insist that West Virginia's results only reflect the difficulty Obama would face in West Virginia in a general election. In fact, Obama's crushing loss tonight reflects an important disconnect with a major Democratic constituency and it tells us about what we might expect in states like PA, OH, and MI come fall (states we can't afford to lose).
So let's take a look at the lessons of WV:
Up until now one of Hillary's major arguments has been that she attracts a demographic that Democrats absolutely have to win over to have any serious prospects in November. In 2004, Democrats won four of the five industrial great-lakes states by only a few percentage points (and lost the other state, costing us the election), and the white working-class demographic with which Hillary does so well is an important demographic in the population of each of these states.
Thus, the argument goes, if we conclude that Obama can't win over these voters we need to go with Hillary because that's the only way we have a serious chance in November.
That said, the main reply from the Obama camp thus far has been that Hillary's supporters will go over to Obama come November; that simply losing those voters against a Democrat in the primary doesn't indicate that Obama would lose them against a Republican in November.
Tonights results matter, then, because they, once and for all, put that reply to bed. There are two things to note about tonight's results:
First, West Virginia doesn't favor Hillary because it has its own unique demographic that heavily favors her; rather it favors her because it has a greater percentage of the same demographic that favored Hillary in other states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. That means that just as we were able to infer the way West Virginia would vote tonight based on the way the demographic had voted in other states, we can draw conclusions about that demographic from the way they voted in West Virginia tonight. What the high concentration of working class whites in West Virginia means is that the exit polls from tonight are our best sampling thus far of working class whites.
Second, the exit polls from tonight we awful for Obama's prospects in November. The exit polls indicated that 44% of voters would only be satisfied if Clinton were the nominee. Worse, 53% of the electorate said that they would be dissatisfied with an Obama nomination. Moreover, a majority (51%) of voters thought that Obama was dishonest/untrustworthy while only 35% thought the same of Hillary. And it keeps getting worse because almost 50% of the electorate would stay home or vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee (only 26% would do this if Clinton was). Finally, a majority of voters (53%) said that Obama did not share their values (compare this to the 30% who said the same of Hillary).
To recap, then: The West Virginia exit polls are our best current evidence for what working-class white voters will do in the fall, and that evidence doesn't bode well at all for us if Obama gets the nomination. So even if you don't care about West Virginia itself, and even if you're willing to write it off in November to get Obama as the nominee, you should care about what West Virginia tells us that working class whites will do in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.
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