Would Hillary have outperformed Obama's general election numbers in 2008?

[Adam Griffin]

Warning: Somewhat Empirical Answer!

PV-wise, we have to take the following about blacks into account:

2004: 88% Democratic
2008: 96% Democratic

2004: 11% of electorate
2008: 12% of electorate

So...

2004: 11*0.88 = 9.68
2008: 12*0.96 = 11.52

Obama's influence on the black electorate added 1.84 points to his national PV %. Based on the overall rigidity of the black vote historically, it's unlikely it would have moved in Hillary's favor when compared to 2004 by any meaningful amount.

In order for Hillary to break even and with whites likely being 75% of the electorate under that scenario (whites were 74% in 2008; difference due to lower black turnout in Hillary scenario), Hillary would have needed 2.5 points more of the white vote.

That means Hillary would have needed 45.5% of the white vote just to break even.

I'm not entirely confident that would have happened, but if it had, the change would not be uniform. I bet she would have improved with whites when compared to Obama more in the South than anywhere else, but it likely wouldn't change any Southern state's inevitable EV outcome considering how much the black share of the vote jumped in many of those states (in Georgia, from 25% in 2004 to 30% in 2008; increased the PV by 6.9 points - she would have needed 5 more points of the white vote to perform as well as Obama did in GA under a 2004 scenario).