Well, it worked. Ever since the McCain campaign put Arizona in a festive pink on its electoral map, Democratic blogs are starting to pick up and run with the notion that Arizona is a swing state. The warrant for the claim is pretty thin -- an internal poll leaked by a Democratic congressional candidate showed McCain ahead by just 5 points in an R+6 district. Against that, we have a relative abundance of statewide polling showing Obama no closer than 9 points (and often down by more than that) and the fact that it's McCain's home state.
The home state effect seems generally to be on the order of 6-7 points, but can vary a lot from candidate to candidate and state to state. It might be weaker for McCain than for some other candidates, as he tends more to be a United States Senator than someone who porkbarrels for his home state.
Still, even without that home state effect, Arizona would lag a few points behind pickup opportunities like Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, largely because of its large retiree population. Is it possible that Obama could win Arizona? Sure (although our model assigns him only a 4 percent chance). Is Arizona likely to make the difference between winning and losing the election? Probably not.
Just for our collective edification, however, you can construct some pure Western strategies for Obama that come up with winning electoral margins. Let's say that Obama loses Ohio and Michigan, but wins Iowa, and everything East of the Mississippi goes as it did in 2004. If Obama sweeps the small "sorta, kinda, maybe" Western states that are polling in the single-digits -- these are Montana, Alaska, and North Dakota -- plus the more talked-about Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, that would get him to 271 EV. So would Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. But we're a long way from being able to declare the state competitive.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
'Zona Defense
-- Nate Silver at 10:15 PM
Labels: arizona, mccain, swing states
22 comments
Obama may not win Arizona, but I think if we can make McCain campaign with his time and money here, then he spends less time and money in NM, NV, and CO. That is more important than actually counting on Arizona as a win. Just my two cents.
There needs to be another statewide poll of Arizona done now, so we can see how close Obama has closed the gap after the primary ended.
Obama wasting money in Arizona would be akin to Bush in California in the final days of the election, a waste of money. Sure, you might get within 10 points or so, but you still lose heavily, so it's a definite waste of funds. Losing by 1 vote is still a loss, and it won't even be near that.
This is a McCain rope-a-dope strategy designed to get Obama to waste resources in AZ that could be spent in CO,NM,& NV. I would even put MT in play before AZ. If AZ became competitive somehow then that would indicate an Obama landslide of major proportions and he wouldn't need AZ to win. Either way -- $$ is still finite even with a 50-state strategy.
Just a general question on polls. Everyone analyzes these major polls, but who commissions them? Do the campaigns pay for them? News organizations? If some are commissioned by campaigns, can we learn anything of their mindsets by analyzing which places are bing polled? NY, TX and WA are fine places to poll, but why were those some of the more recent ones? I think everyone wanted to know about MI, PA, OH. We now have a glimpse at the former, but what about the other two- its been three weeks.
As Nate has established, the loss of all three drops the winning scenarios to less than 1%. If I am either campaign, the first chance I get I commission the largest, most accurate poll I can on those three states. And if they seem to be going my way I make sure it is a publicly accesable poll, and control the message that the opponent doesn't have a chance.
I have a feeling that Obama's campaign is smarter than to fall for such a transparent ploy. Anyone who seriously thinks McCain slightly underpolling in one district is indicative of anything should get their hope-meters checked.
In other news, a poll from WisPolitics.com has Obama +13 in the Badger state.
http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=128513
Considering that Obama's campaign was savvy enough to know exactly how many delegates they could get in almost every district that voted on Super Tuesday and beyond, I doubt highly that it will commit an unreasonably large amount of resources to a super-long-shot state. However, don't claim that Obama opening offices and expending effort in AZ is a waste. Any defense McCain plays is a success for Obama (assuming McCain deigns to play defense in his home state), and a lot of the Obama organization is self-starting and volunteer run. If Obama manages to, say, visit every state during his campaign (especially if he can do so before a debate), he's got a powerful addition to his being a uniting figure.
Obama is definitely an underdog in AZ, but I don't think it is outside the realm of possibilities to make it somewhat competitive.
Arizona is a lean Republican state, but the Republicans there on average are much different than the socially conservative ones in the south and midwest. McCain has gone far to the right to get the nomination and that has alienated a large portion of his base in AZ. On Super Tuesday, McCain received less the 50% of the vote in the AZ primary against Romney and Huckabee.
McCain does not represent the views of AZ on illegal immigration and the housing crisis. These are going to be hot button issues in the state. Telling homeowners that you are going to do nothing to help them save their home will not reasonate well with voters. It will also bring up past memories of the Keating Five and the Savings & Loan scandal of the early 90's.
I can see 527's having a field day with Arizona becoming the last state to make MLK a holiday. Even when they finally decided to do obsevere the holiday, it was only to become part of the Super Bowl rotation.
So basically, if Obama can get a string of polls to say that he is within 10 points, then this contest could become very interesting.
yeah, the problem with going after Arizona isn't that it's impossible to swing but that the opportunity cost is too big for the number of electoral votes you can get out of it.
For about the amount of effort it would take to lock up Arizona he could lock up Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, he could lock up Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, he could lock up Ohio, or he could lock up Michigan. I feel it's pretty safe to assume that Obama isn't going to let himself lose enough ground in CA, OR, WA, MN, IA, IL, VT, NY, DC, MD, DE, CT, RI, NJ, MA, or ME (all already over 85%) to lose any of them, so he has 203 EVs to start with. If Obama focuses on locking up PA and WI instead of AZ, then he'll only need any two of the other three groups above to win, and that means that he's likely to win by expending only three times the effort necessary to get AZ, with four times as much effort nearly guaranteeing it.
It would be pretty foolish in my opinion to expend nearly a fourth of the entire offensive effort needed of his campaign to win only 10 electoral votes (or lose 7 if you look at it my way), no matter how significant the symbolism of the victory would be.
Anon at 1:05 - you need to think long-term. How has Tennessee behaved since Bush beat Gore there in 2000? It's been a solid red state. It wasn't even close in 2004, and in 2006 it was the only state with a close Senate race that went to the Republicans.
Every state is unique politically, but states in the same region often vote in similar ways. It helps to look at Arizona not just as a single state, but as part of a region (the Southwest). Yes, the tremendous effort that Obama would have to put in to win Arizona is hard to justify for just 10 electoral votes. But as part of a comprehensive strategy aimed at turning the entire Southwest into a long-term Democratic stronghold? It might just be worth it.
I think the point here is that if Obama is within spitting distance of Arizona, he doesn't have to worry about winning it because his appeal will have broadened to such an extent that he will have a solid majority in the rest of the country.
That is the point that I was making. Democrats have been guilty lately of trying to win with a 50% + 1 strategy. That is very flawed because so many bad things can happen that will cause you to lose. The strategy should be geared on how to get 300+ electoral votes so that you have mulitple ways of winning.
I would campaign in Arizona mostly for the purpose of bringing out McCain's dismal voting record. In 1983, he voted against creating a MLK holiday! Do you really think that isn't going to become a wedge issue in the fall? Republicans have done the same thing with flag burning and school prayer in the past, so it is time for them to get a taste of their own medicine for a change.
New poll in Wisconsin.
http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=128513
Sure, sure, work in fifty states. The Obama team is well aware of the dominating strategy: put Bill and Hill on a bus around in a loop PA-OH-MI-OH-PA. Maybe tack WI on in some loops. This is so appealing because they're close, tons of votes, there's a well-developed machine from the close primary, and HRC polls so well there. Meanwhile Obama is working VA with the governor, senator, and senatorial candidate. Western states would be nice, but resources should go to the cleanest victory scenario.
Politics Trader has this right. If Obama wins Arizona or even gets close, he only does so because he is so far ahead of McCain nationally that he will win enough electoral votes anyway.
The strategy is now clear. On offence, Obama targets three red areas: 1. The western trio of CO, NM and NV 2. The east coast trio of VA, NC and FL 3. The midwest quartet of OH, IN, MO and IA. You have right there, 10 red states carrying around 115 EVs which is more than enough.
On defence, Obama appears already to have made the west coast states of CA, WA and OR safe so I think he only needs to worry about MI, WI, PA and NH.
I haven't even mentioned states like MT and ND on which I would only expect Obama to devote material resources if he is more than 10 points clear nationally.
This provisional field puts Obama at a massive advantage in that Obama has 11 reasonable pick up prospects and McCain only has 4. I think we will see state polls going his way over the next couple of weeks and the pressure increasing on McCain. If McCain is unable to put more blue states in play (eg OR, MN, NJ) I just don't see how his financial resources can compete with Obama.
AZ isn't even the cherry on the cake for the Democrats. It's the after dinner petit fours. Totally unnecessary but a nice luxury if it's available.
Since Obama trusts volunteers to take independent action more than any GOP campaign, he can invest a "symbolic" level of resources in AZ and still potentially make a less efficient McCain campaign waste more, including tying down surrogates who could otherwise go elsewhere. Plus, the overhead costs can be shared with the DNC, since it serves the longer-term goals of the 50-state strategy -- recruiting activists and building up their experience to keep pushing toward blue.
Campaigning in AZ is not a waste of resources. It is a national strategy. The national press has been much, much easier on McCain than the AZ press. Personally going to AZ is a highly effective way to get some of that bad news about McCain, and some of his hometown failures, into