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€