Wednesday, March 18, 2009

How many electoral votes would Obama get against Palin?

Our new national survey pitting Barack Obama against Sarah Palin in a possible 2012 contest finds Obama leading Palin by 20 points. Obama beat John McCain by just 7 last fall, so it appears he would do 13 points better against Palin.

Palin's poor performance relative to McCain might not necessarily be uniformly spread across the 50 states, but just to get some idea of how many electoral votes Obama would get in a contest against Palin, let's look at the states McCain won by fewer than 13 points last fall:

-Missouri (McCain + .1) 11 EV's
-Montana (McCain + 2.3) 3 EV's
-Georgia (McCain +5.2) 15 EV's
-South Dakota (McCain +8.4) 3 EV's
-Arizona (McCain +8.5) 10 EV's
-North Dakota (McCain +8.6) 3 EV's
-South Carolina (McCain +9.0) 8 EV's
-Nebraska-1 (McCain +9.8) 1 EV
-Texas (McCain +11.8) 34 EV's

So Obama would win approximately 88 more electoral votes in a contest against Sarah Palin than he received against John McCain last fall. That would give him a 453-85 victory in the electoral college.

It's a long way until 2012, but it appears the Republicans nominating Palin would lead to the biggest landslide in a generation.

Full results here.

9 comments:

Tbone said...

No way Obama would win by 20. This poll is senseless 2 months into a sitting President's term. Obama would win by about +7 right now. Polls don't matter until 2012.In 2012 Obama has to run on his record which he doesn't have to right now. Obama would still lose the Dakota's and South Carolina. Why not use another Republican name? You just used Palin to make her look bad.

Anonymous said...

Jensen,

How do you explain the 41% that Palin receives among 18-29 and the 34% she receives from 65 and over crowd? hahaha

So Palin is performing pretty well with indies (47/43 favorables/unfavorables, higher than Obama's approval/disapproval -9 among indies) and yet, is -11 in favorables/unfavorables?

And Palin is down by twenty despite being down only four among indies?

Jensen, take a bath man...you are going to be crying at UNC-Asheville November 4th, 2012 when Obama gives his concession speech without that dumb constipated grin on his face. His wife will be in tears, will she be proud of her country then, hahahah.

Anonymous said...

Rasmussen had Palin at 52/46 nationally favorables/unfavorables.

Newsweek had her at 44/42

You have her at 39/50 despite being +4 among the group that the media tells us she is unpopular among, independents?

Jensen, take a bath bro, is Obama going to beat Hillary in Pennsylvania again? hahaha

Seattle said...

Your chart is wrong regarding Arizona. They have 10 electoral votes. For a total 88 additional EVs.

Anonymous said...

Can't everyone just take a bath??

Will Matthews said...

Tom,
Now you know I love you, but if Chris Hayes posted math like this, I'd be all over him. I won't bemoan the point, but simply...Your EV change math makes an assumption of the McCain vs. Palin vote swing being geographically uniform. That's an assumption you make no effort to justify. I would say it's pretty untenable as well.

Tom Jensen said...

That's why I said:

"Palin's poor performance relative to McCain might not necessarily be uniformly spread across the 50 states"

This is a poll on an election 44 months away, I'd say the whole exercise is pretty damn hypothetical and I don't think I tried to hide that!

Will Matthews said...

Ah the cost of a quick read...got me :)

Anonymous said...

That's what you'd like the public to believe - I'd love to see it tested. By 2012 we might not have a Country left to worry about!!

 
Web Statistics