Unbuilding 2008: The South won't rise?
Posted: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 9:19 AM by Mark Murray
The New York Times looks at the swath of Southern vote that didn't just support McCain over Obama, but did so in greater numbers than Bush did over Kerry. "By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say. The region’s absence from Mr. Obama’s winning formula means it ‘is becoming distinctly less important,’ said Wayne Parent, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. ‘The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics.’”
Here are some numbers we crunched:
-- Obama received approximately 34,000 fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry. McCain received nearly 350,000 votes less than Bush in 2004.
-- In Florida, McCain received about 25,000 fewer votes than Bush in '04, but Obama found another 540,000 votes over the Kerry total.
-- In Wisconsin, McCain received 220,000 fewer votes than Bush, while Obama outperformed Kerry by about 180,000 votes.
-- In Virginia, McCain received 10,000 more total vote than Bush in 2004, but Obama found another 500,000 votes over the Kerry '04 performance.
-- In North Carolina, McCain outdid Bush by about 150,000 votes from 2004, but Obama bested the Kerry number by nearly 600,000.
-- In New Mexico, McCain received about 33,000 fewer votes than Bush, while Obama outdid Kerry by close to 100,000 votes.
-- A similar story in Nevada, where McCain received 7,000 fewer votes than Bush in 2004, while Obama surpassed the Kerry total by approx. 135,000 votes.
-- In Iowa, McCain came up about 74,000 votes short of the Bush total, while Obama soared passed Kerry's vote total by about 70,000 votes.
-- In Colorado, both McCain and Obama surpassed the '04 vote totals: McCain beat Bush by about 18,000 votes, while Obama topped Kerry by about 215,000 votes.
So, it was a one-sided rise in turnout. Had McCain's turnout risen at the same rate as Obama's in many of the battleground states, we would have topped 140 million which was the argument some in the McCain campaign were making. They needed a HUGE turnout -- anything under 140 million or 135 million meant it was a one-sided rise in turnout as these stats in key battleground states indicate.
