Talk Elections

Why was Missouri so close in 2008?  McCain barely won it by 0.13%, the closest state that year.  But Bush killed it there in 2000 and 2004 and Romney won it by around 11% in 2012.

Because the election was more Democrat-leaning than any of the other 3 you listed and because Obama drove up black turnout

Yeah I know black turnout in St. Louis was massive.  But black turnout nationwide was actually HIGHER in 2012 (remarkable feat), and Obama lost the state by a big margin.  So it seems like either black turnout in St. Louis declined and/or white turnout increased massively.  Romney did improve on McCain's white vote while doing worse with nonwhites.

I would say that Missouri in 08 was the sweet spot between Obama's great urban and minority margins in '12 and Kerry's much better performance among southern whites than Obama in '12.

The high AA turnout had a lot to do with it (St. Louis, Kansas City), and also it was a Democratic year due to Bush's unpopularity and the recession.

In addition to the above factors, Obama also had a presence in the St. Louis media market since 2004 when he first ran for Senate.

If Gore and Kerry had won the popular vote by 7 points, they'd have carried Missouri comfortably.

If Clinton had won by the margin nationally that Obama did, she likely would have carried Missouri.

I could EASILY have seen Hillary getting this map in 2008 if everything broke the same, maybe just a tad better for her:

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White Democrats "coming home" and Katrina backlash make LA close.

If you say so, but I recall polls having Hillary winning both WV and AR in general election matchups.

^ Yeah most polls before she dropped out (https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2008/polls.php?fips=5) showed her winning or running close in them.

Bush barely won it in 2000, the amazing thing to me was that Obama didn't win Missouri in 2008.

Yeah, Bush 2000 won Missouri by 3.3%. Dukakis lost it by just 3.5% in 1988.  I think the farmers in that state are more pro-democrats due to the GOP not being on their side on economic issues.

First of all rural Missouri is very republican and secondly which issues do farmers not agree with republicans on, other than maybe ethanol which many republicans support anyway?

Well St. Alphonso the Southeastern Missouri and Springfield areas are super conservative but Democrats have shown themselves to be perfectly capable of winning other parts of the state.

What about Indiana and NE-02? Do you think that Clinton would have gone after other places instead, and just leave them on the table?

LOL @ the idea of Hillary winning AR and WV. She'd probably have done worse than Obama in NC and lost it as well.

I didn't care at the time because Obama won so decisively, but why wasn't there a recount here?

A margin of 4000 is far outside what is likely to be flipped by a recount.

LOL if you'd like, but I'm just going off of the polls that were done during the primary season and the fact that those states both had Democrats elected up and down the ballot with ease that year.  I mean, it was 8 years ago.

But yes, LOL at the polls because of stuff we know in 2016 based off of an Obama Presidency...

Obama probably felt the same way you did. If the state's result doesn't affect the national outcome, it would look like sour grapes to contest the result in a close state.

I believe the candidate has to demand a recount, and as Obama already had 363 votes, such a demand would be pointless and arrogant.

Hillary probably would've won AR in 2008 and would've had a decent chance in WV. Remember, this was before Appalachia began to see the entire Democratic Party as an anti-white hate group, and the country as a whole was much less polarized in 08.

Yes, and all that was only 8 years ago.. kind of goes to show how things can certainly change... and why I get a bit annoyed when atlas predicts future elections based on the last general election result.

Yeah... this was before the Tea Party (aka Second Gingrich Revolution), though that was probably just as much the symptom as the cause of our absurd polarization...

Doubtful.  Most of Appalachia and the Outer South started trending to the GOP during the Bush vs. Gore contest in 2000, driven primarily by social conservatism and the national Democrats' hostility toward coal mining.  I get so tired of the liberal talking point about "Obama tanked in Appalachia because of racism," because it just isn't true.

Remember, McCain withdrew his campaign from Michigan in mid-September, effectively handing the state over.  I remember one poll some time around March that showed him tied with Hillary and losing to Obama here, and another one later that showed him beating them both.  Then Obama took the lead in nearly every Michigan poll after he secured the nomination.

Because McCain was seen as a more moderate, conciliatory conservative, he would have won in any year before 2008 by a solid margin.  But by the time he was nominated, nearly the entire country had come down with severe Bush Derangement Syndrome, and his chances were almost entirely shattered.  He took the lead after the convention, but then the financial crisis destroyed whatever chance he had left.

On that map I would flip GA and NC and I think that would be right

NO Republican would have won in 2008, given Bush's abysmal approval ratings and the financial crisis.  But McCain did exacerbate the situation by picking Palin as his running mate, one of the single most reckless decisions made by a presidential nominee in history (2nd to McGovern picking Eagleton).  Then, when Lehman went bankrupt and the world was in panic, McCain acted like an unstable old man by suspending his campaign so he can return to DC to work on the problem.  Of course, McCain knows very little about the economy and added no value when he went back to DC.  In contrast, Obama exuded a sense of calm leadership, even temperament, and good judgment.  It of course did not hurt that Obama decisively won all 3 debates against the old mumbling McCain.  If it weren't for those grievous errors, McCain's margin of defeat would have been more like 3-4 points nationally rather than 7.2 points.  And he would have won IN, NC, FL, NE 02, and the GOP would have done better in the congressional races as well.

Read my post again.  I said McCain would have won in any other year before 2008, but the anti-Bush sentiment, the Iraq war, and the financial crisis made it a losing battle for him.

Yeah the only way a candidate would.demand a recount would be if their winning the Presidency depended on it.