African Americans may strongly support Obama, but they do like the Clintons too, and they probably don't like what the Republican Party has become by 2012.
Obama takes Illinois because of the home state effect, and does better than most non-Linda Lingle Republicans do in Hawaii, but because of the divided African American and a heavy White vote against him, he loses the entire South.
President Hillary Clinton/Vice President Joe Biden (D) 53% 442 EV
Senator Barack Obama/Former Governor Mike Huckabee (R) 43% 96 EV
There's probably a huge gap between the popular vote margin and the electoral vote margin.
Ehhhhh.... No.
Whites in the Deep South are willing to vote for black Republicans (see: Tim Scott) and I doubt in any timeline Obama would be like Herman Cain or Ben Carson or something; if he’s half as charismatic as the real Obama, and moderate as well, he WILL be able to attract a decent amount of black support. Whether that’s enough to win blacks outright or even win IL is another story. But I just don’t see Hillary sweeping the South or Illinois voting far to the right of Missouri and Ohio or anything like that. Plus, if you’re going that far, WV remaining R is almost comical; Hillary led it by double digits in 2008. If she is easily sweeping the rest of the region against Obama in 2012, why would she suddenly lose it? Republican IA is even more absurd.
Obama picked someone who won his party's Iowa Caucuses. Hillary probably still lost her party's caucuses to Edwards in 2008.
West Virginia could be explained away by Hillary being anti-coal. I'd expect a high third party vote there, and Obama only wins with a plurality, but he still wins.
As for Illinois...It's his home state, and Hillary really hasn't been popular there in quite some time. It wouldn't be a stretch for him to win it, especially if he's popular as a Senator.
If the African American population, does unite around Obama (certainly possible, if unlikely given the Republican platform- I have doubts they'd do so with Tim Scott, too) Obama would sweep the South instead.
