How well will Obama do in Texas?

[Jacobtm]

Texas will clearly go to John McCain, but Obama is practically guaranteed to improve on Kerry's numbers there. I'm curious about Texas because obviously it had been a strong Democratic state at one point, and really when you look at Texas, it hasn't been terribly bad for the Democrats when you compare it to their national numbers and also take into account that George Bush has been on the Republican ballot every election since 1980 save 1996. Also taking into account Perot's affect on '92 and '96, really Texas doesn't seem all that heavily Republican. True, a Democrat hasn't won Texas since '76, but Democrats also haven't gotten more than 50% of the Popular vote since that date either.


- 1976 and 1980, Carter's national and Texas margins were nearly identical.
- In '84, Mondale did 4 points worse in Texas than nationally.
- '88, Dukakis was only 2 points lower in Texas than his national numbers, and that was against Bush.
- '92 and '96 Clinton did 6 points worse in Texas than nationally. Apparently Texas actually preferred Dole to Bush, giving Dole 49% after only giving Bush 40.5%.
- '00 and '04, Gore and Kerry both did about 10 points worse in Texas than nationally.

So even with a native-son running on the Republican ticket, and even with a candidate as bad as John Kerry, the Democrats appear to have a floor of 10 points below their national level in Texas. I realize that since the '70's Texas has become much more Republican, and it's really not in play unless Obama begins to approach a 10 point national PV victory.

However, if he wins nationally by 5 points or so, which is what polls seem to indicate at this point, it seems he'd have little trouble getting around 45% in Texas, right?

[Jacobtm]

He may get within 10, especially if Hispanic and youth turnout is high.

If this thing *really* breaks towards Obama (i.e. Obama by 10 points -- something I think is very unlikely to happen), then he might have an outside chance of actually CARRYING Texas.

That's sort of the point. Besides in '00 and '04, Democrats did poorly nationally and lost Texas not because it was particularly Republican, but because they didn't really preform well anywhere.

[Jacobtm]

Wasnt Texas 20 points more than the national average in 2004?

'04 National PV: 50.7/48.3
'04 Texas PV: 61.1/38.2

Kerry did 10 points worse in Texas than he did nationally. The margin was 23 points, but that's not what I was talking about.

Obama is not carrying Texas, and this thread is ridiculous. You have a lead, but please don't hack it up.

I began this thread by saying McCain will clearly win Texas, and ended it by asking if Obama could get about 45% of the vote in Texas. Did you even read the first post?