I agree that Obama will do well in Hawaii. But it has a very large military population (active and retired). Won't that help Clinton, since she's been very martial the past 2 years?
Aren't most military guys Republicans and hence will vote for McCain in the GOP primary?
True, I didn't think of that.
Anyway, isn't Hawaii 6% Mormon? That would translate into what, 12% of GOP primary vote? Which in turn would give Romney about 10%. A good base but it doesn't in itself seal the win. I'd expect a lot of Hawaii people to be moderates which would help McCain. I expect Huckabee to suck here though and Paul to over-perform.
Great, another state for the Norman to win
Hawaii's different ethnic groups have very different voting patterns. I forget exactly what they are but its something like:
Japanese and Native Hawaiian ancestry- Strong Democrats
Filipino ancestry and Mainland (European) Whites- Republicans
I believe it's a tad more complicated than that because the native hawaiians (and possibly some other non-White groups) are heavily pro-incumbent - they will vote for the incumbent regardless of party (hence why Bush did so well there last time, Clinton did very well in 1996, Bush Sr. did about as well as he did nationally in 1992, Carter eeked out a win in 1980, etc). I remember there was some attention given to the fact that Hawaii in 2004 was the only state where whites were the best demographic for Kerry.
But I'm no expert. Related to that, Inks, I have no source for the 6% figure either. Someone on the forum said it was 6% and no one denied it. Someone else said that Nevada showed that the mormon propirtion doubles in the primary. So I'm going by hearsay here, I'm as little a mormon-expert as I am a Hawaii-expert.