Clinton vs Republican Obama 2012

[Alben Barkley]

Obama as gop would probably be a Romney who appeals to young voters

Obama/Romney 300
Clinton/Bayh 238

I think the map likely is somewhere in-between these two.

Party alignments would be significantly different in this timeline. Hillary would keep most of the old Bill Clinton Democrats in Appalachia/the Upper South. Not nearly as heavy losses with WWC as in our timeline. Obama might face an electoral college disadvantage as a result, because Hillary holds on to states like AR/MO/WV in addition to most of the rust belt. And still is more popular in already heavily Democratic areas, though perhaps Obama could make in-roads into some of them, and hold on to states like VA: Presumably as a Republican, he would be quite moderate.

[Alben Barkley]

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.