Thread: States Suffering Most Didn't Always Pick Obama

Wednesday, November 05, 2008
States Suffering Most Didn't Always Pick Obama
Mark Lieberman, Senior Economist
FOXBusiness
In the end, it may not have been about the economy after all.

Senator, and now President-elect, Barack Obama by no means swept states with higher than the national unemployment rate, states where the unemployment rate has increased more than the nation as a whole in the last year or states in which foreclosures have risen sharply -- all measures serving as metaphors for most visible symptoms of the national economic weakness.

Obama did not even excel in states with high poverty rates -- the percentage of families earning less than the government-designated poverty level.

Of those 21 states, Obama carried only six.

Of the 10 states with the highest poverty rates, he carried only two, District of Columbia and New York.

One state among the top ten -- North Carolina -- remains too close to call, according to FOX News.

Obama won, but did not dominate, states with immediate economic concerns.

Specifically, the electoral map does not match closely with the roster of states where unemployment rates are high -- at or above the national average of 6.1% -- or where the unemployment rate has increased at least as quickly as its has nationally in the last year, up 1.4 percentage points from 4.7% in September 2007. (October numbers will be reported this Friday.)

Nor does the electoral map track states where, foreclosures have increased at a faster pace than the nation as a whole, 21.0%.

The analysis suggests that even though voters told exit pollsters the economy was the main issue in the choice between Obama and Sen. John McCain, there may have been other factors at work.

Here though are the details of the results, matching them against economic indicators.

Of the 19 states with an unemployment rate of 6.1% or more in September, Obama won 11 -- Rhode Island (8.8%), Michigan (8.7%), California (7.7%), Nevada (7.3%), Ohio (7.2%), District of Columbia (7.0%), Illinois (6.9%), Florida (6.6%), Oregon (6.4%), Indiana (6.2%) and Connecticut (6.1%).

Those states though had a combined 177 electoral votes of the 270 Obama needed and the 349 he won (North Carolina and Missouri remain too close to call).

McCain captured six high unemployment states -- Mississippi (7.8%), South Carolina (7.3%), Tennessee (7.2%), Kentucky (7.1%), Alaska (6.8%) and Georgia (6.5%) -- with 51 electoral votes.

The unemployment rose at least as quickly as the nation as a whole in 22 states, with Obama winning 12 (Rhode Island, Florida, Nevada, California, Illinois, Indiana, Hawaii, New Jersey, Ohio, Connecticut, Delaware, and Michigan) with 189 electors.

McCain, though, picked up nine states with fast-rising unemployment rates (Tennessee, Idaho, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Montana) with 74 electoral votes. The 22nd state is North Carolina.

The story was about the same in states in which foreclosures rose at least as quickly as the nation -- 21% in the last year.
In those 25 states, Obama won 14 (Hawaii, District of Columbia, Virginia, Oregon, Nevada, Rhode Island, Maine, Delaware, New Jersey, Florida, Minnesota, California, Indiana and Illinois) with 182 electoral votes.

McCain won the other 11 (South Carolina, South Dakota, Kansas, Utah, North Dakota, Mississippi, Idaho, Alabama, Arizona, Alaska and Wyoming) with 60 presidential electors.
The difference of course came in the states labeled as “battlegroundâ€

I would agree people just picked the opposit of what was there, just to invoke change. Even we called for a clean house..........anything is better than what we have. Throw the baby out with the bath water. Shake them up!!!!

I remember people in Africa wanting change and burning farmers out of their homes for "change" and are now starving.

I think it is very interesting that if Obama had not won the 6 "toss up" states he would not have won.

So Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, PA and Virginia held the entire election in their hands.

In Florida the week before the election, Obama outspent McCain 10 to 1 in TV ads. The weekend before the election McCain ran 5,702 TV ads in Florida's largest markets, according to Nielsen Media Research. In the same period, Obama ran 18,909 TV ads.

McCain lost Florida by 194,902 votes. Of those 51,414 went to 3rd Party Candidates, Barr, Nadar and Baldwin.

If you take out the 3rd part votes and give them to McCain then McCain only needed 143,488 votes to win Florida.
There are about 70 counties in Florida so that comes to 2,049 a county.
I think that 18,909 TV ads could have definitely effected this outcome.
I understand many of those ads were about Social Security and convinced Seniors that McCain supported the same Bush policy of trying to make Social Security part of the stock market - or an "ownership" fund that you had to invest and take your chances with.

McCain would say in his speeches that this was just no so, but with out the TV ads to fight this impression he could not reach all that Obama did.

Also currently they are still holding North Carolina as too close to call.
The 3rd Party Candidates would have given the race to McCain:
North Carolina:

12,163 Obama margin of victory

25,181 Barr (Paul/Baldwin Proxy because of ballot structure)

Same thing in Indiana which was not a toss up state but would have helped McCain:
Indiana:

26,163 Obama margin of victory

29,186 Barr votes