Likely Hillary Clinton popular vote margin and why?

[GaussLaw]

49 percent IMO.  I think she is sinking in my opinion and see her as going down from this point.

[Bull Moose Base]

52%-53%

I just don't see her doing better than Obama in 08'.

But research estimated racism brought down Obama's vote share by about 4% in both 2008 and 2012.

http://prospect.org/article/did-obama-lose-votes-because-his-race

Even if Hillary was only as strong as Obama 2012, adjusted for color, she'd do better than he did in 2008. But I also think she'll run stronger than he was in 2012.

[Never]

52%-53%

I just don't see her doing better than Obama in 08'.

But research estimated racism brought down Obama's vote share by about 4% in both 2008 and 2012.

http://prospect.org/article/did-obama-lose-votes-because-his-race

Even if Hillary was only as strong as Obama 2012, adjusted for color, she'd do better than he did in 2008. But I also think she'll run stronger than he was in 2012.

It's worth noting that in 2008, Obama received the highest percentage of the vote for any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. In other words, Lyndon Johnson was the most recent Democrat to win more of the popular vote than Obama; none of the White presidential candidates that the Democrats nominated since '64 were able to win 52.86% of the vote until bi-racial Obama managed to reach that number in '08. Keeping this in mind, it seems doubtful that racism seriously hurt Obama's campaigns in the manner that Jamelle Bouie argues through his citation of how racially charged Google searches relate to voting.

Even if we accept the notion that racism did affect Obama's electoral performance, it should be remembered that African-Americans cast a historically high percentage of their votes for the President in 2008, and that this percentage was coupled with historically high turnout for that demographic. Based on the indicators we have about the African-American vote since the collection of that kind of data, Obama's percentage with the group was the highest ever for any Democrat. This could have counteracted possible racism that hurt Obama.

Now, given the right set of circumstances, Hillary could very well do better than Obama's 2008 performance (I wouldn't be surprised if she won an unusually high percentage of the White female vote for a Democrat, among other things), but it doesn't seem as if that potential result should be attributed to racism depressing Obama's percentages.

[IceSpear]

52%-53%

I just don't see her doing better than Obama in 08'.

But research estimated racism brought down Obama's vote share by about 4% in both 2008 and 2012.

http://prospect.org/article/did-obama-lose-votes-because-his-race

Even if Hillary was only as strong as Obama 2012, adjusted for color, she'd do better than he did in 2008. But I also think she'll run stronger than he was in 2012.

2008 was somewhat strange. Obama won comfortably and easily, but considering that pretty much all the stars were aligned against the GOP in that election, complete with last minute financial crisis blamed on the incumbent Republican president who has a 25% approval rating, he probably should have performed better. Hillary or Edwards (without the scandal) probably would've won the popular vote by double digits, with 400+ EVs.

[IceSpear]

52%-53%

I just don't see her doing better than Obama in 08'.

But research estimated racism brought down Obama's vote share by about 4% in both 2008 and 2012.

http://prospect.org/article/did-obama-lose-votes-because-his-race

Even if Hillary was only as strong as Obama 2012, adjusted for color, she'd do better than he did in 2008. But I also think she'll run stronger than he was in 2012.

It's worth noting that in 2008, Obama received the highest percentage of the vote for any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. In other words, Lyndon Johnson was the most recent Democrat to win more of the popular vote than Obama; none of the White presidential candidates that the Democrats nominated since '64 were able to win 52.86% of the vote until bi-racial Obama managed to reach that number in '08. Keeping this in mind, it seems doubtful that racism seriously hurt Obama's campaigns in the manner that Jamelle Bouie argues through his citation of how racially charged Google searches relate to voting.

Even if we accept the notion that racism did affect Obama's electoral performance, it should be remembered that African-Americans cast a historically high percentage of their votes for the President in 2008, and that this percentage was coupled with historically high turnout for that demographic. Based on the indicators we have about the African-American vote since the collection of that kind of data, Obama's percentage with the group was the highest ever for any Democrat. This could have counteracted possible racism that hurt Obama.

Now, given the right set of circumstances, Hillary could very well do better than Obama's 2008 performance (I wouldn't be surprised if she won an unusually high percentage of the White female vote for a Democrat, among other things), but it doesn't seem as if that potential result should be attributed to racism depressing Obama's percentages.

Yeah, but 2008 was pretty clearly the worst environment for the GOP in decades. You have a good point that minority turnout which was strengthened by Obama likely mitigated this somewhat, but I still think Obama underperformed generic D in 2008.

[Non Swing Voter]

I'm thinking it will be somewhere in the low 60s.  Obviously I'm being generous to the GOP here.  Hillary could win up to 70% of the vote!  That's how inevitable it is.

I must have missed something, did "Never" make a new moniker?  This smells a lot like one of his posts.

[pbrower2a]

My guess:

Hillary Clinton wins at 51% deep red
                                   52% medium red
                                   53% pink
                                   54% white
                                   55% pale blue
                                   56% medium blue

[Never]

I'm thinking it will be somewhere in the low 60s.  Obviously I'm being generous to the GOP here.  Hillary could win up to 70% of the vote!  That's how inevitable it is.

I must have missed something, did "Never" make a new moniker?  This smells a lot like one of his posts.

First off, he was joking. Second, just because you dislike me doesn't mean I make sock accounts and post silly maps. This was an interesting thread and I wouldn't want to ruin it through that kind of post. Still, you could make any kind of accusation against me, and I wouldn't care. It's easy to make swipes at people when you're hiding behind a computer screen.

[Never]

52%-53%

I just don't see her doing better than Obama in 08'.

But research estimated racism brought down Obama's vote share by about 4% in both 2008 and 2012.

http://prospect.org/article/did-obama-lose-votes-because-his-race

Even if Hillary was only as strong as Obama 2012, adjusted for color, she'd do better than he did in 2008. But I also think she'll run stronger than he was in 2012.

It's worth noting that in 2008, Obama received the highest percentage of the vote for any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. In other words, Lyndon Johnson was the most recent Democrat to win more of the popular vote than Obama; none of the White presidential candidates that the Democrats nominated since '64 were able to win 52.86% of the vote until bi-racial Obama managed to reach that number in '08. Keeping this in mind, it seems doubtful that racism seriously hurt Obama's campaigns in the manner that Jamelle Bouie argues through his citation of how racially charged Google searches relate to voting.

Even if we accept the notion that racism did affect Obama's electoral performance, it should be remembered that African-Americans cast a historically high percentage of their votes for the President in 2008, and that this percentage was coupled with historically high turnout for that demographic. Based on the indicators we have about the African-American vote since the collection of that kind of data, Obama's percentage with the group was the highest ever for any Democrat. This could have counteracted possible racism that hurt Obama.

Now, given the right set of circumstances, Hillary could very well do better than Obama's 2008 performance (I wouldn't be surprised if she won an unusually high percentage of the White female vote for a Democrat, among other things), but it doesn't seem as if that potential result should be attributed to racism depressing Obama's percentages.

Yeah, but 2008 was pretty clearly the worst environment for the GOP in decades. You have a good point that minority turnout which was strengthened by Obama likely mitigated this somewhat, but I still think Obama underperformed generic D in 2008.

First off, I will admit that it does seem like Obama's improvement with the white vote was rather muted in 2008 for a victory of his size that year:



Considering Obama did 6.16 percentage points better in the overall popular vote than Kerry did just four years eariler, it does seem strange that Obama only did 2 points better with the White vote. On the other hand, Obama's percentage of the White vote was the best for a Democratic candidate since 1976.

Perhaps we should take into account the increased polarization of the United States that could have dampened any Democratic candidate's victory in 2008. I'm not completely confident that a White Democrat, like Hillary Clinton, would have done better than Obama in 2008. I took a glance at how Clinton fared against McCain in the polls tabulated by RealClearPolitics and how that compared to Obama's performance against McCain.

The final Reuters/Zogby poll of both Clinton and Obama from 4/10/2008-4/13/2008 showed Clinton down by 5 points against McCain, while Obama was tied with him. Similarly, the last ABC/WaPo survey of both Clinton and Obama showed Clinton down by 3 points against McCain, while Obama led by 5 points. While Clinton was quite weak at this point right before dropping out of the Democratic nomination, the gaps that we saw between her poll numbers and Obama's seem to be large enough to argue the point that Obama was probably the strongest candidate that the Democrats could have nominated in 2008.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I don't remember answering OP's original question. I think that Hillary Clinton will likely win at least 52% of the popular vote. Her support with minorities might slightly soften, but I suspect that she will strengthen with female voters in general compared to Obama's performance in 2012.