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Obama is Weak in Key General Election States
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Race
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| Contributor | TX DEM |
| Last Edited | TX DEM Mar 06, 2008 11:35pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Friday, March 7, 2008 05:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Two weeks ago we noted that, in spite of all the press hype promoting Barack Obama, the Democrats were only two steps away from chaos in their nomination process.
Now make that one step.
An Obama sweep this past Tuesday was probably never in the cards, given Hillary Clinton's strength among working-class voters and Hispanics, which she's had virtually all along. But a Clinton sweep of Texas and Ohio is something the media did not prepare for, as they ignored the evidence staring them in the face and essentially drove Obama around the track for a victory lap before the race had ever taken place.
Now the party has a huge problem. Sure, Obama has a narrow lead among elected delegates -- a margin he's likely to hold after the run of primaries ends in June. And, on paper, he's still the current favorite to win the nomination in August.
But if Obama emerges as the nominee, it's now clear his campaign is headed into the autumn homestretch with some enormous holes.
Foremost among them is that Obama has yet to win a major state other than his own (Illinois) because he's still having trouble appealing to both Hispanics and working-class Democrats --those so-called Reagan Democrats. As early as this past November, the Pew Forum was picking up signs in its polls that Obama was running significantly worse among Catholics than he was among virtually any other demographic group in the electorate.
That's still true. Unfortunately for Obama, Hispanics and working-class voters are two groups with some affinity for John McCain. In recent head-to-head polls, for example, McCain handily beat Obama by double digits in Florida -- a state once considered a key toss-up. In another poll, the presumed GOP nominee is slightly ahead of Obama in New Jersey, a blue state in which John Kerry defeated George Bush by seven percentage points in 2004.
These are worrying signs for the Democrats, should Obama be the nominee, especially now that it appears the Oba |
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