Hillary and Arkansas

[President Johnson]

I've seen multiple alternate scenarios in this forum showing Hillary Clinton winning Arkansas in the general election. Why is there this notion she would have won Arkansas in 2008? While the state's political geography in 2008 was different from 2016 or today, I don't buy the suggestion the state would have voted Democratic on the presidential level if she was on top of the ticket. Obama even underperformed John Kerry by a fair margin (Obama lost 39-59%, while Kerry lost 44-54%; for comparison: Gore lost 45-51%). Arkansas was rapidly trending Republican each cycle ever since Bubba last won in 1996. I know that Mark Pryor won in 2008 and Mike Beebe twice in 2006 and 2010 by wide margins, but the presidential level was a different story. Hillary may have done better than Obama actually did, but I don't see how she does much better than Kerry. In order to win, she needed to do at least 10 points better than Obama, which means a total shift of about 20 points. That's hardly believeable.

[President Johnson]

I've seen multiple alternate scenarios in this forum showing Hillary Clinton winning Arkansas in the general election. Why is there this notion she would have won Arkansas in 2008? While the state's political geography in 2008 was different from 2016 or today, I don't buy the suggestion the state would have voted Democratic on the presidential level if she was on top of the ticket. Obama even underperformed John Kerry by a fair margin (Obama lost 39-59%, while Kerry lost 44-54%; for comparison: Gore lost 45-51%). Arkansas was rapidly trending Republican each cycle ever since Bubba last won in 1996. I know that Mark Begich won in 2008 and Mike Beebe twice in 2006 and 2010 by wide margins, but the presidential level was a different story. Hillary may have done better than Obama actually did, but I don't see how she does much better than Kerry. In order to win, she needed to do at least 10 points better than Obama, which means a total shift of about 20 points. That's hardly believeable.

You mean Pryor?

Yeah, fixed. I was confused because both are red state Democrats who lost their seat in 2014.

[President Johnson]

Possibly because polls showed her winning it against McCain.

Indeed, I checked that out in an old version of a Wikipedia article, but that was as early as May. I can't imagine her overperforming Obama's actual election result by that much.