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.

Given Historical Trends 2008 Should Be a Close Election

There is a wonderful site called Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections which has a lot of historical data about presidential elections. Just for fun we did some research on what has been the average Democratic vote compared to the average Republican vote over the last 10 presidential elections, starting in 1968.

Over those 10 elections the Democratic percentage of the popular vote has been 44.64 while the average Republican vote has been 49.17. A big reason for the difference are the large Republican victories in 1972, 1980, and 1984. During the last three elections, however, the average Democratic vote has been much higher. Democratic candidates Clinton, Gore, and Kerry averaged 48.63% of the popular vote. During that same period of time Dole, Bush and Bush averaged 46.44% of the popular vote. Those figures indicate a very evenly split American electorate.

Of course, as we saw in both 2000 and 2004, the American system of having voters choose electors who then actually vote for the president helps conservatives. In the lsat two elections George W. Bush averaged 49.3% of the popular vote but averaged 51.77% of the electoral college vote. This bias comes from the fact that each state, no matter what its population, is assured three votes in the electoral college: one for each U.S. Senator and one for a constitutionally guaranteed Congressional representative.

A state like South Dakota has three electoral votes and an estimated population of 752,103. This means that each electoral vote represents 250,701 people. In California there are 55 electoral votes and an estimated population of 35,594,342. This means that each electoral vote represents 671,170 people. That is quite a discrepancy and applies to other states such as Alaska, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. Those states, combined with South Dakota, have a total electoral college vote of 24, four more than Ohio. Their total population, however, is 7,310,773, or about 64% of Ohio's.

Given the fact that the electorate is pretty evenly divided and given the fact that the electoral college has a small state/conservative bias that helps Republicans, the election of 2008, if historical trends are any indication, will be a very close election.