Super Tuesday Preview: Obama vs. Clinton -- One Day Away And It's Anybody's Guess

Posted by Ashish on 02.04.2008

Super Tuesday is tomorrow but the race seems more confusing now than ever before! State by state breakdown and thoughts on the Democratic AND Republican races!

DEMOCRATS

With Super Tuesday now just a day away, most figured things would be clear now. Wrong. The race is as confusing now as it has ever been, at least on the Democratic side. Polls over the weekend have turned several states thought to be Clinton strongholds into total toss-ups, including California, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

Taking a look at the states, the only states polled recently that have concrete leaders are: New York (Clinton), Illinois (Obama), Oklahoma (Clinton), Tennessee (Clinton), Utah (Obama), Arkansas (Clinton), and Georgia (Obama). Every other state has at least one recent poll that shows a tie (or a near tie) or has not been polled recently. America hasn't seen a primary race like this since 1968.

The thing to remember is that all upward movement right now is with Obama. He has been surging in all polls all week. The question now is if he will have made up enough ground by Tuesday, or if Clinton will be able to run out the clock and hold him off. For Obama, he needs to survive Tuesday, because the next several states favor him. Keep in mind, there are NO winner take all states in the Democratic primary. Obama and Clinton will win delegates in every state and will likely have near splits in many states. This is why it will be very hard to deliver a knockout blow on Tuesday.

California is obviously garnering the most media attention, and rightfully so, as most have the race as a tie there and the state has by far the most delegates to award. I still view Clinton as likely to win the state simply because the absentee ballots should favor her strongly. The key here is the margin. If she wins by 10 points or less, the Obama camp will probably view that as a victory since they will more or less split the delegates. If Obama somehow pulls off an unlikely win here, it will likely parallel a nationwide surge that could have him performing above expectations in almost all the states. The thing to remember though is that the California result probably won't be known in time to make the Wednesday newspapers. Much of the media will make up their narrative of Super Tuesday based on states in the east.

That is where Connecticut could become key. Clinton has long been expected to win the NY-NJ-CT tristate area strongly. An Obama win in any of those states would probably end up being the lead story in papers across the country the next day. Right now, polling has CT as a total toss up and polls even have the race in NJ pretty close now. The result of CT will be in early and could end up setting the tone for the entire night.

The other thing to watch are the margins of victory for Clinton in NY and NJ compared to Obama's margins of victory in IL and GA. With NJ polling so close, there is a very real chance that Obama could come out with more net delegates than Clinton from the IL/GA/NY/NJ states. If that happens, it will be a very positive sign for him since CA will likely be very close and Obama has advantages in many of the smaller caucus states.

Part of Obama's strategy has been to win the smaller caucus states by setting up better organization there, which he has done. These states include Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho, and Kansas. Clinton has completely ignored a few of these states. Obama probably needs to win at least four of those states and has a good chance at winning them all. If he does that, wins IL, UT, and GA as expected, and then can pull out two or three of the close states (such as Connecticut, Deleware, Alabama, Missouri, Arizona, or even California), that would have him winning 11 or 12 states that day. If he can win half the states and include in that an upset in CA or CT, it will be hard for the Clinton camp to spin a victory. On the flip side, if Clinton can hold her own in the caucus states and win a few, and perform well in the Southern states like Alabama and Missouri, it would wreck Obama's narrative that Clinton can only win in the big states. Obama wants to win the Midwest and South and then pull off one or two wins on the coasts to show that he has broad support all over the country including in "red states."

Clinton has many advantages in that she is up in most states, even though her lead is now almost non-existant in many. But still, a lead is a lead and she has a much better chance at coming out of Tuesday with a significant lead than Obama does. Again, Obama's goal here is to survive and do well enough to keep the race going, because the schedule heavily favors him after Tuesday. All of states thought to be Clinton's strongest (NY, CA, NJ, CT, AR) are up on Tuesday. If she can't knock Obama out with those, she will have problems later on.

Here's a quick state-by-state breakdown:

Alabama: Polls show a statistical tie; Large African American population.
Alaska: Caucus state where Obama has strong organization; Large number of young voters; No polls.
Arizona: Polls show statistical tie; Large Hispanic population.
Arkansas: Polls show big Clinton lead; One of Clinton's "homestates."
California: Polls show statistical tie; Early voting may favor Clinton and make it hard for Obama to pull off win.
Colorado: Only one poll done, shows statistical tie; Caucus state where Obama has strong organization; Large Hispanic population.
Connecticut: Polls show statistical tie; Lot of upper-class voters.
Deleware: Polls show statistical tie; Signficant African American population.
Georgia: Polls show big Obama lead; Very large African American population.
Idaho: Caucus state where Obama has strong organization; No polls.
Illinois: Polls show big Obama lead; One of Obama's "homestates."
Kansas: Caucus state where Obama has strong organization; No polls; One of Obama's "homestates."
Massachusetts: Polls shows Clinton lead; Ted Kennedy's homestate.
Minnesota: One poll has Clinton up slightly; Caucus state where Obama has strong organization.
Missouri: Polls show statistical tie.
New Jersey: Polls show Clinton lead.
New Mexico: Polls show slight Clinton lead; Very large Hispanic population.
New York: Polls show big Clinton lead; One of Clinton's "homestates."
North Dakota: Caucus state where Obama has strong organization; No polls.
Oklahoma: Polls show big Clinton lead.
Tennessee: Polls show big Clinton lead.
Utah: One poll shows big Obama lead.

REPUBLICANS

The Republican race is not as close as the Democratic one, as most expect John McCain to more or less put away Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Romney's big problem is that Mike Huckabee refuses to quit even though he has no chance of winning. This is forcing many strong conservations to split between Romney and Huckabee. If Huckabee wasn't around, most of his support would end up shifting to Romney and would allow him to much more effectively fight against McCain. Of course, it's pretty clear that Huckabee is working with McCain and this is very much part of McCain's strategy to keep Romney from being able to compete with him.

Romney still has an outside chance at surviving Tuesday as he could win California (which mosts polls show him performing well in) and if he does, it would provide him with a huge media boost. Of course, him winning in CA will only matter if he is able to win most of the smaller states, many of which have caucuses where he has much stronger organization that McCain. Romney will win Utah and Massachusetts by big margins and if he can pick off a few other states, he may be able to fight on. But again, it's going to be very hard for him almost entirely because of Huckabee, who is still taking up to 25% of the vote in many states that Romney would either be very close, or ahead, in if Huck wasn't still in the race.

The other problem for Romney is that the Republican race DOES have some winner take all states and McCain is up big in many of the large states like New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. California is NOT winner take all, meaning that even if Romney wins, he will still more or less split the delegates with McCain.

Many conservatives are rallying around Romney a bit now that news of John McCain, a shaky conservative at best, will likely win the nomination. But again, as long as Huckabee is around, he will eat up many Evangelical and other strong conservative voters that would otherwise go to Romney, making it almost impossible for him to pull off major upsets on Tuesday. It's also worth noting that Romney is not spending on the Tuesday states like many thought he would, indicating that he himself doesn't really see too much of a chance of him pulling things off.