The Convention It Shall Be
It seems all but assured now that the Democrats aren’t going to have a clear nominee going into the convention. Sen. Clinton picked up huge, momentum adjusting wins yesterday. Let’s take a look at some of the numbers.
Sen. Clinton won Ohio by roughly 230,000 votes (10%). 44% of all the voters in Ohio were white women, and they gave Sen. Clinton 66% of their vote. Black women, meanwhile, made up 7% of the voters, but only gave her 9% of their votes. She also won the older people, taking 67% of voters age 60 and over (compare to Sen. Obama, who won 67% of the voters between the ages of 17 and 29). She won “the poor” vote (less than $50k a year), the “less educated” vote (63% of those without a college education), the moderate vote (Obama took both the liberal and conservative vote), the vote of those who are religious, but not really practicing (Obama won the non-religious and the religious who attend services on a weekly basis), and the vote of union house-holds. But among almost all of those segments of the voting public, none seems as important as white women. They showed up and voted for her in droves.
In Texas, the trends seemed about the same. White women weren’t such an overwhelming percent of the voters (27%), but they continued to support Sen. Clinton by a large majority: 59% of white women voted for Sen. Clinton. She also won white men, but only by a percentage point. What really seemed to make the difference were the Latinos. 66% of Latino women, who made up 18% of the vote, cast their ballot for Sen. Clinton, and 58% of Latino men (12% of the vote) did too. Again, she won the “poor vote” (by 2%) and the “less educated” vote (72% of voters without a high school diploma, 56% of H.S. graduates, and 51% of those who had “some college or associated degree”), but Sen. Obama took more moderates. He also won those who rated the economy or the war in Iraq as the top priority; Sen. Clinton, meanwhile, took those who said health-care was the most pressing issue.
One interesting thing is that, in both Ohio and Texas, Sen. Obama won the people who voted in the Democratic primary but identified themselves as Republicans and/or conservatives, which I believe supports his claim that he stands a better chance in the national election, especially against a Republican who is in a position to claim a large number of independents.
But regardless of what I think, it seems that yesterday’s results all but guarantee a brokered convention. If you want to see how fun that can be, you might want to watch The West Wing, Season 6, Episode 22. It’s gonna be a lot more fun than balloons.