MS: Rasmussen: McCain up by 6%

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I hope hope hope Obama spends a lot of time in Mississippi.

Why on earth are you guys under the impression he will be campaigning in Mississippi, anyway? He's not going to win there, so why does he need to go down there? Chances are he'll further polarize the whites, and you don't get anything for second place in the general election. He won't help Musgrove by going it.

[minionofmidas]

what effect will the Hurricane Katrina devastation have on election trends, considering the coastal area must have considerably a reduced population as compared to 2004?

The coastal area has a somewhat reduced population as compared to 2004. (I would call immediately post-Katrina to immediately pre-Katrina a "considerable" reduction, though it's not comparable to New Orleans and St Bernard, but it's bounced back a good bit since.) Whether this might have any effect on state election trends depends, of course, on where these people went, which I have no clue about.

It's not obviously a political mistake at all. Obama going to Mississippi drives up black turnout. Whether Musgrove campaigns alongside Obama or not is another matter. Childers threaded this needle nicely, we saw.

What you guys have to be aware of, as you learned when Greg Davis crashed and burned, is that you won't be able to tie Musgrove to Obama without having it blow up in your face. This isn't Kerry; you're going to juice Musgrove's vote if you do that. It will be fun to see how Wicker tries to accomplish this, as he's smart enough to see that this Republican strategy blew up badly.

A wee bit of hubris/hackery here... this *could* happen (I note that Obama did not, of course, openly campaign for Childers), and that's heartening enough, but of course it needn't happen.

As far as the Obama 278 max I stand by that.  In other words I'm not buying Obama winning Florida, NC, Va, Mo stuff which flies around this board.  The 278 actually gives him Colorado, NM, Iowa, and Nevada along with the other Kerry states.  So no Brittain, my numbers didn't come out of my ass.

 
https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2008/pollsa.php

Predicting he won't win any of those four states is, of course, entirely reasonable. Claiming he has "no reasonable shot" at any of them is getting a wee bit onto the hackish side (or the slightly deluded side if you actually believe it.)

[agcatter]

Let's get out of the early summer period and see how it shakes out.  Right now, few are focused unlike this board.

[Brittain33]

Why on earth are you guys under the impression he will be campaigning in Mississippi, anyway?

Friend of a friend on the Obama campaign. I know that sounds lame, but I promise this is the only piece of information I got from this source, other than that Obama isn't going to Kentucky, and that I don't think this makes me an awesome insider.

Even if it doesn't make the strongest electoral sense for him to campaign there... think about what it would mean to him, to African-Americans, and to the nation as a whole, for him to show up in the state with both the largest black population by percentage and the most troubled civil rights history in the nation, particularly on voting rights. It would be huge to do so, and for the right reasons. There are a lot of African-American voters in that state who have been quietly supporting the national party for decades but have rarely, if ever, gotten a response.

[minionofmidas]

The problem wasn't Greg Davis connecting Obama to Childers (even though it obviously drove up black turnout).  Rather, the problem was Greg Davis not connecting one bit (and his opponent connecting big-time) with the NE MS population Lewis and I were yaking about above that is required in order to win the CD.  Trying to connect Obama to another candidate won't work in any situation if the voters don't want to vote for you in the first place.

Trying to connect Childers to the Obama and Pelosi and making them out as monstrous scarecrows made Davis look even more like a suburban partisan hack conservative. Which of course mightn't have happened if he wasn't a suburban partisan hack conservative.

[Sam Spade]

The problem wasn't Greg Davis connecting Obama to Childers (even though it obviously drove up black turnout).  Rather, the problem was Greg Davis not connecting one bit (and his opponent connecting big-time) with the NE MS population Lewis and I were yaking about above that is required in order to win the CD.  Trying to connect Obama to another candidate won't work in any situation if the voters don't want to vote for you in the first place.

Trying to connect Childers to the Obama and Pelosi and making them out as monstrous scarecrows made Davis look even more like a suburban partisan hack conservative. Which of course mightn't have happened if he wasn't a suburban partisan hack conservative.

Of course.  But the point still stands - I really don't see how this logic affects Wicker, because after all, he's not a suburban partisan hack conservative (well, at least not suburban).

[Brittain33]

Of course.  But the point still stands - I really don't see how this logic affects Wicker, because after all, he's not a suburban partisan hack conservative (well, at least not suburban).

Well, I was responding to someone who introduced the idea of Obama being a factor that could hurt Musgrave in the election.

[Sam Spade]

Of course.  But the point still stands - I really don't see how this logic affects Wicker, because after all, he's not a suburban partisan hack conservative (well, at least not suburban).

Well, I was responding to someone who introduced the idea of Obama being a factor that could hurt Musgrave in the election.

If he's seen campaigning with Musgrove, yes.  Otherwise, no.  That doesn't, of course, mean Obama shouldn't campaign in MS.

[minionofmidas]

Made a stupid little calculation based on the figures in the thread above: (%Kerry - %Black)/ (1 - %Black). That is to say, an approximation of Kerry's *minimum* share of the white vote, by county.

Same thing, Musgrove vs Parker 1999.

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In Black-majority counties, Musgrove underperformed worse than Kerry, sometimes ridiculously so. This even goes for Hinds.
Of course, MS governor's races are held in off-years, so black turnout may have been quite low. Or maybe there's some hidden source for Black support of Mike Parker.
If that also holds elsewhere, all these figures are probably too low (cept in places like Tishomingo that don't really have blacks. But there aren't many of them.)


These are the counties from the earlier list: (Rounding-created ties broken by alphabet, not actual result order:)
Tishomingo 54
Alcorn 53
Prentiss 52
Benton 51
Itawamba 50
Tate 50
Tippah 48
Union 46
George 44
Lafayette 43
De Soto 42
Hancock 40
Monroe 40
Pearl River 36
Marshall 35
Lee 34
Pontotoc 34
Stone 34
Harrison 30
Jackson 26
Oktibbeha 22
Chickasaw 17 (what happened here!?)

On average, improvement on the Gulf is not quite as strong as in the Hills.



To be joined by the following places:

Yalobusha 36
Greene 35
Neshoba 31
Lamar 29
Perry 29
Webster 28
Calhoun 26
Jones 25
Smith 25
Wayne 25
Forrest 23
Grenada 21
Choctaw 20
Lawrence 19
Marion 19

and so on and so forth: 12 more counties over 10, 15 more counties over 0, but 17 counties below 0.

This extra list has a few counties bordering the Hill Country - although several of these are in the plains; Grenada is a white-majority Delta Country place - and a larger list of Pine Belt Counties just north of the Gulf Coast, which is especially remarkable as this is the area Parker is from (though his house district was mostly further to the west). And triracial Neshoba County right in between the two - maybe Musgrove had the Choctaw vote? (MS Choctaw may well be the largest reservation in the US to be won by Bush. Choctaws used to be dirt poor and isolated even by native American standards, but have been earning good money with Casinos recently. And are of course undergoing a population explosion. And are still a remarkably conservative group linguistically.)
 

[Sam Spade]

Well, first, Mike Parker was a Democrat before he switched parties (could be some residual support there).  Also, wasn't that CD a heavily black belt CD that included Jackson (or at least parts of it).

[BamaObama]

Made a stupid little calculation based on the figures in the thread above: (%Kerry - %Black)/ (1 - %Black). That is to say, an approximation of Kerry's *minimum* share of the white vote, by county.

Same thing, Musgrove vs Parker 1999.

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In Black-majority counties, Musgrove underperformed worse than Kerry, sometimes ridiculously so. This even goes for Hinds.
Of course, MS governor's races are held in off-years, so black turnout may have been quite low
 

That's definitely it.

Black Southerners, while voting overwhelmingly Democratic, have traditionally low turnout numbers.  This is particularly true in Mississippi.  Given that the Musgrove v. Barber was held in the off-year of 2003, it's easy to see how fewer voters would be driven to the polls.

That's probably applicable across all ethnic groups, too.  Though, it's probably amplified among those with low turnout to begin with...

[minionofmidas]

Well, first, Mike Parker was a Democrat before he switched parties (could be some residual support there).  Also, wasn't that CD a heavily black belt CD that included Jackson (or at least parts of it).

Yes, Parker's CD included most of the Jackson metro (although the missing bits were ultra-black bits), those black southwestern counties around Natchez, and the white counties east of that (including some listed here)... not sure how far east it went exactly.

[minionofmidas]

Lol, I totally overlooked one county in the additional list - Panola. Black Belt whites county between Tate and Yalobusha, of course. Musgrove got 55% of the white vote, his highest share anywhere... no surprise though as it's his home country.

[minionofmidas]

Completing the trifecta: 2003

Prentiss 42
Benton 40
Itawamba 40
Tishomingo 40
Hancock 38
Alcorn 35
George 35
Tippah 34
Union 31
Monroe 29
Harrison 29
Pearl River 27
Chickasaw 26
Greene 25
Panola 25
Pontotoc 25
Stone 25
Lafayette 24
Lawrence 24
De Soto 23
Lee 23
Jackson 22
Marshall 22
Yalobusha 22
Neshoba 21
Tate 20
Calhoun 18
Perry 18
Smith 17
Lincoln 16
Wayne 16
Jones 15
Oktibbeha 15
Webster 15

analysis to follow

[Brittain33]

Mississippi has the best county names in the country.

[Smash255]

It is possible for Obama to get in the mid 40's in Mississippi.  Not saying it will happen, but it could.

Obama will likely increase African American turnout, and African Americans will likely be a bit more Democratic than they typically are.  Also whites might be slightly more Dem than they were in 04.  Those who won't vote for Obama based off race are likely already in the GOP column on the Presidential level anyway.  70, 80 something whites as they die are replaced by younger whites, who are a bit more tolerant and will likely vote Dem in larger numbers than elderly whites.   In some other states this might be canceled out by voters getting a bit more Republican as they get older, but outside of 20 somethings Mississippi whites are so overwhelmingly Republican already its hard to imagine them getting even more Republican.

Another side to the turnout issue, is that the elder population in Mississippi is much more white than the younger population, so that alone could increase African American turnout compared to 04, because the voting age population is likely more African American than it was in 04.

[minionofmidas]

Obama will likely increase African American turnout, and African Americans will likely be a bit more Democratic than they typically are.

Kerry's percentages in the black belt are a fair bit better than those Musgrove off-year ones... not sure if there's much room for improvement for Obama there. There certainly is room for improvement for Musgrove here.

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Aye.

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'deed so...

2000:
Total population: 61.4% White only, 36.3% Black only
under 18: 52.3% White only, 45.0% Black only
over 18: 64.8% White only, 33.1% Black only
18-29: 56.3% White only, 40.7% Black only
30-59: 64.9% White only, 33.0% Black only
60+: 73.8% White only, 25.1% Black only

That looks as if the state were getting blacker pretty fast... it isn't, really, though:
1990 35.6% Black, 1980 35.2% Black. Oh, and 1970 36.8% Black and before that always over 40% and for a hundred years up to and including 1930 over 50%.
Reason being that the massive imbalance is not caused simply by a black population explosion, but also by statistically significant lower life expectancy and by some elderly white immigration (to the coast and the Memphis burbs).
2007 Census estimate: 60.7% White only, 37.2% Black only, so the trend is accelerating a bit right now.

[Adlai Stevenson]

My prediction:

MISSISSIPPI PRESIDENT -
53% (R) McCain
45% (D) Obama
  1% Others


MISSISSIPPI SENATE -
52% (R) Wicker
47% (D) Musgrove

[7,052,770]

Well damn, a 5 page thread on MS goes by while I'm on vacation.  My 2 cents:


Wow, another poll shows McCain up by only 6%.  Cool.  Unlike a many Mississippi Democrats, I'm skeptical that Obama is going to win the state, but this has to be great news for Musgrove.
As long as Obama and Musgrove aren't campaigning together, Obama campaigning here shouldn't hurt Musgrove too much.  Musgrove would be well advised to skip the convention and not make a formal endorsement of Obama though.
If Obama campaigns here and drives up black turnout, I really think he'll push Musgrove over the top.  After all, Wicker is not a strong opponent.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Harry, what the hell good do you think Musgrove is would do the Democrats if he doesn't want to be seen with Obama?  Doesn't that say something about what kind of Democrat he is

[Flying Dog]

Harry, what the hell good do you think Musgrove is would do the Democrats if he doesn't want to be seen with Obama?  Doesn't that say something about what kind of Democrat he is

Many Republicans would rather be caught in a bath-room stall Larry Craig style rather than be seen with President Bush. What sort of Republican does that?

[7,052,770]

Harry, what the hell good do you think Musgrove is would do the Democrats if he doesn't want to be seen with Obama?  Doesn't that say something about what kind of Democrat he is

He'll vote to keep Democrats in control of the Senate and a have moderate voting record (contrasting with Wicker's far right voting record).
That's a lot of good, especially from a normally Republican state like Mississippi.