Why was the 2010 SC governor's race so close?

[krazen1211]

Mark Sanford's first election in 2002 underperformed George W. Bush 2000 in the many of the same counties that Nikki Haley 2010 underperformed McCain 2008.


But its easier for the left to cry racism despite the fact that Haley got around 75% of whites.

[krazen1211]

Mark Sanford's first election in 2002 underperformed George W. Bush 2000 in the many of the same counties that Nikki Haley 2010 underperformed McCain 2008.


But its easier for the left to cry racism despite the fact that Haley got around 75% of whites.

It's easy to cry racism when you have South Carolina state senators making comments like this about Nikki Haley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtxBwietCg

Which has what precisely to do with the topic of the thread?

[krazen1211]

Mark Sanford's first election in 2002 underperformed George W. Bush 2000 in the many of the same counties that Nikki Haley 2010 underperformed McCain 2008.


But its easier for the left to cry racism despite the fact that Haley got around 75% of whites.

It's easy to cry racism when you have South Carolina state senators making comments like this about Nikki Haley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtxBwietCg

Which has what precisely to do with the topic of the thread?

Did you watch the video or just read the title? The news clip in the video goes on to explain the backlash when Nikki Haley won her primary and how South Carolina senator Jake Knots said, "We've already got one rag head in the Whitehouse, we don't need another one in the governors mansion", referring to then candidate Nikki Haley as "a rag head" (an ethnic slurr against people of middle eastern origin) after she won the republican primary.  Since this thread is about why Nikki Haley underperformed in 2010 and race was brought up as an issue, I though a news video about a state senator from her own party referring to Nikki Haley as a rag head has a lot to do with the thread.  (And yes I know that the title say "South Carolina Senator Jake Knotts calls Obama a 'Raghead'", but if you actually watched the news clip you would see that the entire point of the video was about Nikki Haley).

I don't actually believe that her race was a big problem for her in 2010.  Bobby Jindal has shown that being Indian American doesn't play much of a role in winning big in conservative states.

That, at most, establishes that Jake Knotts might or might not have voted for Nikki Haley. It hardly explains why Haley should have expected to gain substantially more than 51.4% of the vote when Mark Sanford got only 52.9% 8 years earlier.

[krazen1211]

Mark Sanford's first election in 2002 underperformed George W. Bush 2000 in the many of the same counties that Nikki Haley 2010 underperformed McCain 2008.


But its easier for the left to cry racism despite the fact that Haley got around 75% of whites.

Mark Sanford was running against an incumbent Democrat (Jim Hodges) who, from my perfunctory look at his Wikipedia page, didn't seem to have done anything to merit getting voted out of office other than being a Democrat in South Carolina. While 2002 was a fairly good year for Republicans at the federal level b/c of the post-9/11 afterglow, that didn't translate to state-level coattails (see: Republicans losing open-seat governor's races in Oklahoma and Tennessee).

For Nikki Haley in 2010 to underperform relative to Mark Sanford in 2002 seems to fly in the face of what anyone would reasonably expect given the factors I outlined.

Well, from 2002:

They also recaptured the governorship of South Carolina, where Jim Hodges, a Democrat, was ousted after one term by former Representative Mark Sanford, who had attacked him over the state's lagging educational performance and economic fortunes.





In any case, nobody has posted what the 'expected' vote share for Nikki Haley is. Nathan Deal got 53% against Roy Barnes in the neighboring state.

[krazen1211]

That, at most, establishes that Jake Knotts might or might not have voted for Nikki Haley. It hardly explains why Haley should have expected to gain substantially more than 51.4% of the vote when Mark Sanford got only 52.9% 8 years earlier.

But remember, Sanford unseated an incumbent in 2002 (Jim Hodges).  That could well have made his race tougher than Haley's.

Going back further, here are the results for other Republicans elected in the last 40 years there.

1974: James Edwards - 50.88%
1986: Carroll Campbell -  51.02%
1994: Davis Beasley - 50.41%
2002: Mark Sanford - 52.85%
2010: Nikki Haley - 51.37%


As far as I can tell, getting 59% statewide in South Carolina requires getting Jim Demint/Phil Bryant 80%+ performance with the white vote, if you get what appears to be 5% among blacks. You can decide for yourself if that's a reasonable threshold; 55% might be possible as that's what Ken Ard got.

[krazen1211]

1974 and 1986 were both strongly Democratic years and, needless to say, further back in the transition of  conservative Dems into the Republican party.

And if anything, proof that the idea of 'strongly Democratic years' is perhaps less meaningful than some think it is.

[krazen1211]

1974 and 1986 were both strongly Democratic years and, needless to say, further back in the transition of  conservative Dems into the Republican party.

And if anything, proof that the idea of 'strongly Democratic years' is perhaps less meaningful than some think it is.

I think we can all agree that drawing contemporary lessons from Southern elections and legislatures from the 1970s, 1980s, and even much of the 1990s is inherently problematic. Looking at elections before the year when Rick Perry chaired Al Gore's campaign as a model for 2010 is tough to defend, objectively.

Well, that's just it. You can pick at the idea that the SC 2010 governor's race was closer than it 'should be', but such is baseless without a valid target as to what it, uh, should be. Preferrably a target backed with some sort of prior electoral evidence.

I appreciate the one poster who made such target; much less so the people who merely scream 'racist!'. I guess its much easier to poke at others' historical evidence rather than provide your own.