Contrary to What Rasmussen Seems to Think, HRC Can Win in 2008

On October 29, 2007 we posted an entry that argued for the proposition that historical trends indicate that the election of 2008 will be a very close election. This is because Democrats, even when winning re-election very seldom break 50% of the popular vote. Indeed, Truman was elected in 1948 with less than 50% of the electorate, as was Kennedy in 1960 and Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. In fact, only two Democratic Presidential nominees have received over 50% of the popular vote: FDR in all four of his elections and LBJ in 1964.

Given that historical record, it's not too surprising that the Rasmussen polling organization reports that Hillary Clinton seems to have both a ceiling and a floor of around 48%. Most Democratic candidates play at the margins with regard to the popular vote. Very seldom are they going to go above 50% and very seldom are they going to go below 40%. Indeed over the last 76 years only George McGovern went below 40% of the popular vote.

Unlike Rasmussen, however, we don't see this as an acute problem for the Democratic Party nor does it make the 2008 election un-winnable by Clinton. That's because of the electoral college, which while it has a small state Republican bias, can also be used by Democrats to win the presidency.

Kennedy, Clinton and Truman all had close popular vote elections, but substantial electoral college victories, with Clinton getting over 68% of the electoral college vote. This is because of the winner take all nature of the electoral college. In presidential elections winning elections by a 100,000 votes is as good as winning by a million votes.

In 2000 we saw Bush barely win, (if indeed you accept the legitimacy of the Florida vote), the electoral college by winning Florida even though he lost the popular vote by about 500K. Although as we pointed out in an entry dated October 29, 2007, we believe that the electoral college has a conservative or small state bias, we also believe that Democrats can use the electoral college to win presidential elections.

Depending on the Republican nominee it is easy to see Hillary winning all 17 states that Kerry carried, the District of Columbia, which Kerry also carried, and one more or possibly more than one more state to win the presidency. The states that will be up for grab are Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. A dark horse state for the Dems will be Virginia. It will be a down and dirty election, but the one thing about the Clintons, they don't run from a fight.