Hanging by a Thread

What good is it, Clinton asks, for Obama to win states like Wyoming, which no Democrat can realistically win in November? So far, Obama has failed to issue the most relevant retort: What good is it for Clinton to win states like Massachusetts, which no Democrat can realistically lose in November?

In emphasizing the importance of her big-state wins, Clinton is actually confounding two claims, each false. The first is that her big states should be given extra weight simply because they’re big. But those states have already been given appropriate weight. That’s the only reason Clinton is still in the race, despite having won only 14 states out of 40.

Clinton’s second claim is that she is winning in crucial states, while Obama’s wins in Republican strongholds will prove useless in the fall. This claim misrepresents reality in three important ways.

First, Obama is not the only one winning on Republican turf. George W. Bush won nine of Clinton’s 14 states, in either 2000 or 2004, and seven of them both times. Her wins in Texas and Oklahoma will not be repeated.

Second, Democrats don’t fully reward wins in Republican territory. For example, Utah has one-eleventh the electoral votes of California, but Democrats give it only one-sixteenth the delegates. Obama is not loading up on delegates from Republican-rich states. His wins there have already been significantly discounted–as have Clinton’s.

Third, and most important, while Clinton is right that even FDR probably couldn’t win Wyoming or Utah this fall, even George McGovern probably couldn’t lose New York or Massachusetts. In fact, five of the seven Clinton states that Bush didn’t sweep in 2000 and 2004 are states that Al Gore and John Kerry won by an average of more than 10 percentage points. Thus, most of the states Hillary Clinton has won are ones that, come November, essentially any competitive Democrat can’t win or can’t lose.

One thing muddling matters is that Democrats dispense delegates to second-place finishers as generously as Little Leagues hand out participation trophies. Obama beat Clinton in the battleground state of Missouri and got 36 delegates to her .  .  . 36. (One wonders why they bothered.) Clinton beat Obama in Texas and got 94 delegates to his .  .  . 99. (He won in more heavily weighted “Democratic” districts and the corresponding caucus.) This hyper-egalitarianism says a lot about the Democratic party’s worldview, but it doesn’t strengthen Clinton’s claims.

Clinton recently opined, “I think it is significant that I have won in Ohio and I won Florida.” Ohio is, in fact, her sole victory in a state among the top 30 in size that has been competitive in each of the last two presidential elections. As for her thinking it significant that she “won” Florida–a state that wasn’t contested–voters will have to wrestle with whether that statement reflects poorly on her veracity or on her judgment.

In the meantime, Obama should emphasize this point: Clinton’s wins have either been in big states that won’t be competitive or in small ones that won’t be worth much, while he has won in decent-sized states that will be competitive in the fall. Clinton and Obama have each won exactly eight states worth double-digit electoral votes. The key difference is, in Clinton’s states the average margin of victory in the last two presidential elections has been 14 percentage points, compared to just 8 percentage points in Obama’s.

In 2000 and 2004, only 17 states–one-third of the electoral map–were decided by less than 10 percentage point margins each time, and those states will likely decide the 2008 election as well. Eleven states were decided by 5 percentage points or less each time. It is striking that, of those 11, the biggest, second-biggest, and fourth-biggest (Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) haven’t held competitive Democratic primaries. If you add Oregon (tied for seventh-biggest), then the majority of the 133 electoral votes in the 11 most hotly contested states from the past two presidential elections are from states that the Democrats have yet to decide.

Obama has won nine states to Clinton’s five–worth 75 electoral votes to her 40–among the 17 states that will likely determine the Democrats’ fate. His edge is clear. Still, it is remarkable that, with fully 80 percent of their primaries on the books, the Democrats have contested only one of the four most important states in the upcoming election. Consider this fact: Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are worth 65 electoral votes, while Kerry and Gore lost by a combined 39.

Those 65 electoral votes–not New York and Massachusetts–will likely swing the election.

Jeffrey H. Anderson is a former professor of government at the U.S. Air Force Academy and a creator of the Anderson & Hester college football rankings used in determining which teams will play in the Bowl Championship Series games.