Watching the returns come in from the Virginia primary last night I was struck by a few things.
Obama ran up the score in a way that the polls had not predicted, and the exit polls showed huge gains for him with women, working-class voters, and seniors–core constituencies that Clinton MUST win in Ohio and Texas to keep the race close.
Huckabee hung tough with McCain, reflecting what I see as a nagging problem Johnny Mac will have to face–evangelicals just don’t like him, and self-identified conservatives aren’t quite ready yet to rally around the presumptive GOP nominee.
Most interesting, though, were the vote totals. I could hardly believe my eyes as the overall Democratic tally blew past the Republican total, and kept on piling higher and higher.
This is Virginia, right? I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t accidentally watching the Washington, D.C. returns.
When it was all over the Democratic vote total was 973,000 (rounded to thousands) while Republicans took less than half that, with 484,000. Barack Obama won 619,000 votes and Hillary Clinton snagged 345,000. John McCain took 242,000.
Now, projecting the general election vote from a primary is an inexact science, at best–but I’m a historian, so inexact science is the only kind I know. With that caveat, I think the 2000 comparison is thought-provoking.
John McCain’s total yesterday turns out to have been about 49,000 less than he received in the 2000 primary when he faced George W. Bush.
Republican interest in that contest ran high. Virginia in 2000 came before Super Tuesday, and McCain was still in the hunt, having won New Hampshire, Arizona, and Michigan earlier that month. The overall Republican turnout was 664,000. McCain took 44% of those votes, while Bush raked in 53%. Alan Keyes got 3%.
Fast-forward to the general election, and Virginia was good to George Bush–he won 1.4 million votes. This means that in November Bush grabbed 2.1x more than the total number of votes from the February primary. If we assume the same multiplier will hold for McCain, then look for him to win just a bit more than one million votes in November.
There’s not much use in looking at the 2000 Virginia nominating results for the Democrats, because they didn’t come in until April, and by then Al Gore had LONG since wrapped it up. In the general election he won 1.2 million votes–losing to Bush.
BUT, if you look just at that 1.2 million number and assume that Democrats do no better in Virginia this year than he did in 2000, then . . . you guessed it . . .
Democrats will win Virginia in 2008.
Wait, wait, that assumes that Hillary Clinton, if she is nominated, can get as many votes as Al Gore did in 2000. I’m willing to assume that. With Obama, I have no doubt.
Also, it’s possible that the multiplier is bogus and McCain will win all of the 1.4 million votes that Bush won in 2000. If he can do that, and the Dems can’t do better than Gore did, then the GOP will hold Virginia.
But, just for kicks, let’s apply that 2.1 mulitplier to the Democratic primary vote total from yesterday. This assumes that they will be as fired up for their nominee in November as Bush voters were for him in 2000. Seems reasonable, right?
That scenario would give the Dems a bit more than TWO MILLION votes in November. Is that possible?
Who knows, but I would suggest that John McCain had better schedule a few extra campaign stops in Virginia, or he can kiss those 13 electoral votes goodbye.
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