In a state without much in the way of competitive seats, SC-02 appears to be the most competitive, with a PVI of R+9 or so. And it doesn’t look like Joe Wilson has had serious competition since forever.
Anyway, what with the outpouring of Dem voters relative to GOP voters in the recent presidential primaries, I’m wondering if this might be an outside takeaway opportunity. Any idea, SSP junkies?
What’s the story with SC-02 and Joe Wilson? Any challengers on the horizon? How strong is Wilson, anyway? Or is this one just a lost cause?
He only ran about 3 points ahead of George Bush here, against a dude who apparently never raised enough to file FEC reports. Pretty sizable black population (26%). I wonder what could happen with Obama on the ticket.
In MS, 38% of the population is black but parties split on racial lines at the Presidential level. Al Gore got over 90% pf the black vote but only 18% of the white vote in 2000 and didn’t come close. Even poor whites voted overwhelmingly Republican according to the exit polls.
Much of the deep south has split into a white Republican Party and a black Democratic Party, at least at the Presidential level. This is pretty recent. Jimmy Carter carried every southern state except Virginia in 1976 by coming close in the white vote and dominating the black vote. Without those 12 states, Carter, who won 297 electoral votes, would have been creamed.
Following that election, of course, the big name ministers lined up solidly and heavily for the Republican Party. Racism under the guise of religion gave Repuvlicans the upper hand. Bill Clinton cruised to easy elections by carrying 6 of 13 southern states (including KY and WV), the only Democrat to be elected President without carrying a majority of southern states.
In the two elections since then, Democrats have failed to take “and keep” a single state within the south. Republicans, otoh, managed to win just one state in the Northeast in 2000 (New Hampshire by 8,000 votes) and no states in 2004. Even in in incredibly poor years like 1936, the GOp managed to carry something in the Northeast.
In short, the Carter formula still works. Doing it is not so easy, these days.
Let’s take Mississippi as a prototype Southern state.
Can it become competitive again?
See the CNN Exit Polls from ’04.
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTIO…
And start with this fact: John Kerry won Mississippi in a landslide, by 63% to 37% — if you look at voters under age 30.
In fact, if you look at all MS voters under age 65, Kerry did well, with 43% for Kerry to Bush’s 56%. So that constituency was as favorable to Kerry as West Virginia, and almost as friendly as North Carolina, states on many Dems’ wish lists. (Far better than Kansas, where Kerry got 37% to Bush’s 62%.)
We got wiped out in MS among voters 65 and older. They went to the polls looking to find Strom Thurmond running as a Dixiecrat, or George Wallace in the schoolhouse door shouting “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” or Ronald Reagan fresh from a speech undermining the Civil Rights Movement. George Bush was just what they wanted and he got 75% of the votes from the James Eastland generation.
But that cohort keeps dying off, losing almost 2% of their former members every year (replenished, of course, by middle-agers turning 65.)
People talk about demographic change in Virginia and North Carolina, where in-migration has changed NOVA and the Research Triangle. But demographic change in MS may be even more profound. The racist voters die off, and more young folks arrive at voting age, tilting the state inexorably toward racial moderation.
I’m not saying that Mississippi is the most likely to tip from red to blue. But it may be the one most likely to surprise you by becoming competitive in ’08.
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I’m using MS because I’m recycling this comment from another blog, where the thread was more specific to that state. But to some extent these observations apply to many Southern states. Georgia youth went 52% Bush to 48% Kerry, while over 65 went Bush by 67%. North Carolina’s under-30 voters went for Kerry-Edwards by 56% to 43%. And Arkansas’s young voters went for Kerry 51% to 47%. The Thurmond-Bush voters are dying off. The youth vote is not a racist vote. Things could be very different in the South, soon.
Very intriguing choice of District. My answer upon consideration is no for two reasons.
1) We don’t yet have a confirmed candidate (we will soon).
2) The SC party is particularly weak and indeed IMHO is the weakest state branch in the deep south.
Sorry mate. FL-18, FL-21 or FL-25 might be longshot chances?