Nate Silver - Clinton Is Winning The States That Look Like The Democratic Party
“Secretary Clinton cleaned our clock in the Deep South, no question about it,” Bernie Sanders said during Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Brooklyn. “That is the most conservative part of this great country,” he continued. “But you know what, we’re out of the Deep South now. And we’re moving up.”
I have a few problems with this line of argument, which seems to imply that Democratic voters in the Deep South don’t reflect the larger Democratic electorate. (The remarks Thursday night echo previous comments made by Sanders and his campaign.) Consider Sanders’s reference to the term “Deep South,” which traditionally describes Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina: These are five of the only six states, along with Maryland, where at least a quarter of the population is black. Given the United States’ history of disenfranchising black voters — not to mention the importance of black voters to Democrats in November — it’s dicey for Sanders to diminish Clinton’s wins there.
But the Deep South isn’t Sanders’s only issue. His problems in the rest of the South are what really dooms him. Clinton’s largest net delegate gains over Sanders came from Texas (+72) and Florida (+68), two states that are within the South as the Census Bureau (and most other people) define it. Clinton also cleaned Sanders’s clock in Virginia and North Carolina. Overall, Clinton gained a net of 155 delegates on Sanders in the five Deep South states, but she also added 211 delegates to her margin in the rest of the region.
In addition to being important to the Democratic Party’s electoral present and future, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Texas are quite diverse. They’re diverse ideologically — Miami and Austin aren’t exactly “the most conservative part” of the country — and they’re diverse racially. They contain not only a substantial number of African-Americans but also Hispanics and, increasingly, Asian-American voters.
In fact, these states are among the most demographically representative of the diverse Obama coalition that Clinton or Sanders will have to rely on in November.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-is-winning-the-states-that-look-like-the-democratic-party/
= new reply since forum marked as read
