Tuesday, July 15, 2008

South Carolina President

John McCain 45
Barack Obama 39
Bob Barr 5

Barack Obama is keeping it closer than other Democrats have in recent years in South Carolina, but still trails John McCain by six points.

The demographics fueling Obama's ability to stay within striking range are the same ones that allowed him to win a dominant victory in the state's Democratic primary. He leads 77-10 with black voters and 54-32 with voters under 30. John McCain leads within pretty much every other subgroup.

If there is a path to victory for Obama in South Carolina it includes maximizing turnout from those two groups favorable to him, and also hoping that more conservatives unhappy with John McCain will turn toward Bob Barr.

Full results here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem to be weighing the demographics of your poll (ex: racial balance) to state demographics. But what about the predicted increase in African-American turnout because of the Obama campaign? That was one reason why you underestimated Obama's margin in the SC primary, for example.

Tom Jensen said...

Black voters tend to vote at lower levels than white voters. For instance although they make up 21.7% of the population as a whole in North Carolina, they made up only 18.5% of the general electorate in 2004 (source: NC Board of Elections, the exit poll said 26% but it was wrong)

South Carolina's population is 29% black, and I think Obama's presence is likely perhaps to result in blacks voting in the same numbers as their share of the population, which would be an increase from the norm. I think voting more than the population as a whole is unlikely but we'll see.

Good question. We did slightly underestimate the black vote in the primary but most of our error was due to having a sample that skewed too old.

Anonymous said...

The 2004 SC exit polls had voters being 30% African-American and 67% white, which matches the demographics pretty well (although you might want to check with the SC board of elections as you did with the NC board, in case that number is wrong.) So a further increase in turnout could possibly push them up a few percentage points.

Anonymous said...

Why do you guys always put Barr in your question but not Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party?

Either include all third parties or none.

Jazz said...

I'm not sure, but I thought they ignored by default any candidates not making it to one percent, don't they? I wouldn't be terribly surprised if neither McKinny nor Nader made it over the hump on that one.

Anonymous said...

South Carolina's population is 29% black, and I think Obama's presence is likely perhaps to result in blacks voting in the same numbers as their share of the population, which would be an increase from the norm.In the last two years back voters being 30%Africans and americans and 67%white -which matches the demographics pretty.
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stella
South Carolina Drug Addiction

Anonymous said...

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961.When he was the member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised. Even Hilary is now supporting Obama."I'm ready to get to work building a great team in South Carolina to put Barack Obama in the White House," Robertson said. "
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Abigailpeter

South Carolina Alcohol Addiction Treatment

 
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