The “Make Your Own Analysis” guide turns its attention to Pennsylvania. If you’ve never been in a campaign headquarters the night of an election, this will perhaps give you some feel, although a big-time campaign on the Presidential level will have far more data than you will see here.

Having run for office a couple of times, I can say there is nothing quite like watching the returns come in. It’s like a sports contest as you watch each precinct and then compare it with what you think you needed to win. I can remember one memorable race where I was winning every precinct, only to have a huge vote come in from one precinct that cost me the election.

Clinton campaign strategist and election night talking head James Carville, once described Pennsylvania as two suburbs with Alabama in between. Pennsylvanians, especially, rural Pennsylvanians have not forgotten this. We will see how Carville spins it on Tuesday night. Interestingly, no one brought this up during the dust-up over Barack Obama’s remarks about rural Pennsylvania.

Clearly, looming over the contest is the impact of Barack Obama’s remarks about small town Pennsylvania and last week’s debate. I won’t reprint the remarks here, because anyone who has not heard about them has either been on an Amazonian expedition or living off the grid. Nor will I go into the discussions about the remarks and the Obama campaign’s spin on them, because people have pretty much made their minds up by this point.

As for last week’s debate, a similar question arises about whether Clinton’s aggressive attacks on Obama along with the questioning of the ABC moderators hurt or helped Clinton. The Internet is recording a large backlash against the negativity, but there are also a lot of people who believe Obama’s responses left something to be desired.

Which brings us to Pennsylvania. These are the people whose minds matter on Tuesday. For once, the media framing of a primary makes some sense, for what now matters is how much damage did the “bitterness: remarks and the debate inflict on the Obama campaign. For Obama supporters, is the message of a new politics registering with voters?

Here are the latest polling data for the state.

Source: RealClearPolitics

This poll is a composite of all the major polls. The purple line is Hillary Clinton; the green Barack Obama. Clinton leads 47.4% to 42.3%. The trending lines are interesting. Clinton received a slight increase after the Obama “bitterness” remarks, but no as much as you might expect. In fact, Obama has been trending up and Clinton down in recent days. One factor that might have contributed to that is the debate.

If you factor in the usual polling error of plus or minus 2%, then this race looks to be close where once Clinton appeared to have it won handily. In a sense, then, Pennsylvania mirrors the trend of the campaign.

Primary Rules

It is important to remember that Pennsylvania is a proportional primary, not winner take all. More crucially the proportional rule does not apply across the state–by that I mean if Hillary Clinton wins 50% of the state she does not automatically get 50% of the delegates. Instead the proportions are allocated at the precinct level.

For those counting delegates, this means that in order to cut into Obama’s lead, Clinton will have to win a majority of precincts by a comfortable margin. The networks cannot possibly give you a precinct count, so be wary of any predictions about the real outcome of this race, which probably will not be known for awhile.

For our purposes we will focus on the entire state, knowing that the precinct level could alter the final delegate count substantially–as it did in Texas, where the media gave Clinton the win only to have Obama wind up with the most delegates.

Turnout

The number of independents voting and the crossover vote will be not be as big a factor in Pennsylvania as it has been elsewhere. The Pennsylvania Primary is a closed primary, meaning you have to declare a party affiliation as part of registering to vote. You had to do this in March, so there will be no last minute independents voting in this primary. If you are as an independent, you either had to change your affiliation to the Democratic Party by the end of March or you are shut out.

Here is how one blog in Philly explained it:

As of November of 2007, there were about 100,000 registered independents in the city of Philadelphia—about 10% of all voters. Because PA has a closed primary system, none of them is going to be able to vote for Clinton or Obama, or in any other tight local race in the April 22nd election.

Which means in local elections, we’re losing the ability to turn out votes from a natural constituency for progressive change (young voters) because of antiquated laws.

Given Clinton’s lead and the closed primary, it will be difficult for Obama to bring in the last-minute and independent voters that have helped him in other campaigns.

Demographics (Census Data)

The big picture is that Pennsylvania should be a Clinton state. Its demographics very closely parallel those of neighboring Ohio, which Clinton won comfortably–54% to 44%. Anything less than 50% for Clinton would be a disappointment, no matter how her campaign spins it. The fact the Clinton campaign is being tight-lipped about predictions along with the polling data suggest she may well finish below the needed 50%.

Obama will need a high turnout of African American voters to offset Clinton’s current lead in the polls and that means Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s African American mayor is a strong Hillary Clinton supporter, which has spawned a great deal of local coverage. The question everyone is asking is how much will his support hurt Obama? The answer is that it cannot help but draw some needed votes away.

Census data show African Americans make up 10.7% of Pennsylvania residents. Obama will need to turnout a number higher than this to help cut into Clinton’s lead. If this figure approaches in the mid to high teens or more it would be VERY significant. Pay close attention to the Philadelphia turnouts. If they are high, they will provide Obama with that 15%.

Typically when Obama has won he also has captured 85% or better of the African American vote. So the first trend to watch is the turnout percentage then as the evening wears on watch the voting percentage. I expect many Philly precincts to have large turnouts, so don’t expect them to report early.

Young voters have always gone for Obama. Census data show 18.8% of potential Pennsylvania voters fall into the 20-34 year-old age group. Even though these voters tend to have low turnouts, if Obama can move this number into the 20s, he may have a chance. Pennsylvania is known for its large number of colleges and universities, which have been a strong Obama base. Watch for turnouts in these college towns such as the home of the Nittany Lions–State College, where both campaigns are targeting last minute efforts. The Penn State system has over 20 campuses in communities such as Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, and York.

CBS reported yesterday:

Among Pennsylvania students who will vote or have voted in a Democratic primary in any state, Obama leads Hillary Rodham Clinton 71 percent to 28 percent, and among those who intend to vote in the Pennsylvania primary, Obama leads by a nearly identical margin of 71 percent to 29 percent.

The one group that has stayed with Hillary Clinton is older voters, especially voters over 55. In Pennsylvania almost of quarter of all voters fall into that cohort. The imbalance between older and younger voters in the Census data may also account for Clinton’s lead. If Clinton can keep this imbalance tilted her way, she should maintain her lead. Typically Clinton has won when the turnout among these voters is in the 30% range and she captures close to 60% of their votes.

Pennsylvania is also 51.4% female. Although Obama won a sizable percentage of female voters during his winning streak, Clinton’s lead in Pennsylvania suggests that at least in this state they remain Clinton supporters. EMIILY’s List and other groups are boosting Clinton and clearly made a difference in Texas and Ohio.

It is clear that as in Ohio and Texas, Pennsylvania women are well aware they need a large turnout to elect the first woman President. If the percentage of women gets into the mid-fifty percent range or higher, Clinton could not just win, but pile up some significant numbers.

This spreadsheet has a column labeled nonvoters, my term for the less-educated and those living in poverty since they have tended to not vote in recent elections. These voters need to turn out if the Democrats are going to win in November. In Pennsylvania 16.7% of eligible voters make under $15,000 and over half of all eligible voters have a high school degree or less.

How these voters turnout and who they vote for will be an excellent gauge of whether the “Snobama” tag is sticking. If the turnout is large and mostly for Clinton, the Obama campaign could face some serious trouble.

Parts of Pennsylvania may be stereotyped as the rust belt, but clearly blue-collar workers could be a key to this election, which is what prompted a final column for union voters.

Pennsylvania is one of the few states to actually increase its numbers of union members. According to the Department of Labor, half of all union members live in six states:

California, 2.5 million; New York, 2.1 million; Illinois, 0.8 million; Michigan, 0.8 million; Pennsylvania, 0.8 million, and New Jersey, 0.7 million.

Only one of those states–his own Illinois–went for Obama–who has had trouble capturing union voters. The Labor Department stats also record that much of this growth has come from non-traditional unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which has endorsed Clinton and provided strong organizing support. Again, this also probably accounts for Clinton’s Pennsylvania lead. If Hillary Clinton brings in large numbers of these voters, it will also not be good news for Obama.

This leads me to make a prediction–as goes the union vote, so goes Pennsylvania. If the turnout of union voters is high–the current percentage of union workers stands at 14.1%–Clinton should increase her lead and capture her needed 50%

The Bottom Line

Clinton’s supporters are being particularly coy about Pennsylvania. It is clear that she will win the state, but her staff is not making any predictions about how much. If she can push her victory percentage into the mid fifties , it would be a significant win.

With Pennsylvania, Clinton will have won all the Eastern and Midwestern industrial states–states the Democrats have to have to win the White House–with the exception of Illinois. Clinton had 54% of the Ohio and New Jersey votes, won Michigan by default, and won her home state of New York with 57%. In all these states her margin of victory was by 10% or more. A significant Clinton Pennsylvania win will help her courting of superdelegates, who now seem destined to decide the nominee.

Your Tally Sheet

As with previous primaries I am attaching below a spreadsheet you can actually print out and fill in as the night goes on, sort of like a political box score. Actually, you will need to print the entire page, but you can use the rest to put your beer and pizza on.

Making the Call
By filling in the information as it comes in, much of it first on the Internet, you can begin to make your own prediction based on the demographic section above and what is in the tally sheet. Not to broadcast any commercials, but I have found in the past CNN tends to have the first reliable data. Fox will sometimes try to release data earlier than the others, but it can be iffy data. What none of them tell you is that all their data come from the same place, it is just when they choose to release it, which data they emphasize, and how well their talking heads can explain it.

I leave it to imaginative readers, especially those in Pennsylvania, to supply updates from your areas.

To facilitate this on Tuesday night, I will make it easier to comment, so comments get on the blog right away. That may yield more spam, but let that be my problem.

A Final Aside

I have not been a fan of the media “calling” elections especially before the votes are all counted. That view has not changed. Instead, my intent with this is to give you a sense of what it is like not to be at CBS, but to be in a candidate’s headquarters as they watch the data come in. This idea also began when I became upset at the networks the night of the Iowa primary because their pundits were not paying attention to the data, but either trying to spin things in their candidate’s favor or just plain wrong about the significance of particular trends.

See you Tuesday evening.

Tagged with: African_Americans • Barack Obama • California • campaign • Census • Cleveland • Clinton • clinton campaign • delegates • Democratic • Democrats • election • EMILY's List • female voters • Florida • google • GOP • Hillary Clinton • identification • Illinois • john mccain • less_educated • Michigan • networks • New Jersey • New York • nomination • nonvoters • November • Obama • Ohio • older_women • party officials • Pennsylvania • poll • polling • polls • Prediction • rust belt • spreadsheet • stereotype • superdelegate • Tuesday • turnout voter • union voters • voters over 55 • woman President