In both surveys, I discovered the same patterns. First, Edwards has about twice the support among whites as he has among non-whites, although he trails both Clinton and Obama among both groups, and has dropped among both groups. Second, according to Pew, Clinton has gained twelve points on Obama among whites in their polls in March and April (moving from a 30%-22% advantage to a 37%-17% advantage), but only three point among African-Americans (moving from a 46%-36% advantage to a 47%-34% advantage). According to Cook / RT Strategies, among whites Clinton has gained 13 points on Obama from their April, June and July polls to their August poll, moving from a 29%-18% advantage to a 29%-15% advantage (source: two very large PDFs, here and here, both on page 21). However, among non-whites, Clinton's lead actually dropped slightly from April-July to August, moving from 37%-32% to 40%-36%. Among individual polls, shifts of this nature can be easily dismissed as statistical noise and the margin of error. However, for the same pattern to occur across two omnibus polls is a different matter. Clinton's gains among whites are statistically significant, while her gains among African-Americans are nowhere close to being so. In fact, it is statistically significant that she has not gained among non-whites considering her gain among whites.
Add this all up, and what it means is that Clinton is taking white supporters from both Obama and Edwards. Dig a little deeper, and one finds that those new Clinton supporters tend to be both male and not-conservative (that is, either liberal or moderate). According to Pew, Clinton has gained 16 points on Obama among moderates and 13 points among liberals, but she has actually lost eight points relative to Obama among conservative Democrats. According to Cook / RT Strategies, Clinton has lost two points relative to Obama among conservatives, but gained 21 relative points among moderates, and 8 relative points among liberals. In terms of gender, according to Cook, Clinton has gained 3 points relative to Obama among women, and 17 points relative to Obama among men. In the Pew survey, that gap was smaller, but still the same, as Clinton gained 13 points relative to Obama among men, and 7 points relative to Obama among women.
There seems to be a pattern here: liberal, white men are shifting to Clinton, and away from Obama and Edwards. As such, there now appears to be virtually no gender or ideological gap in the Democratic nomination campaign. However, a racial / ethnic gap persists. In fact, within that gap, a reverse gender gap appears to be forming, as Obama holds a lead among African-American women 42%-37% across all four Cook / RT Strategies polls (huge PDF, page 25, sample of 194), but trails Clinton among African-American men, 43%-34% (sample size of 125). Taken together, this data all leads to some very counter-intuitive ideas about the coalitions Clitnon, Obama and Edwards are putting together in the nomination contest:
- Clinton's base of support is no longer women, and no longer conservatives. Basically, she has eliminated the "creative class gap" she faced against Obama. At this point, her support only skews heavily among Baby Boomers, those who never went to college, and lower income voters. It is entirely unclear to me what about her message causes this shift.
- Obama's base of support remains the young, the secular, the college educated, and African-American women, but not to the same degrees it once was. Among other things, this actually throws the "history" narrative out the window, or at least allows Obama to strangely corner the market on it. Why are African-American women more supportive of Obama than African-American men? Again, I really don't know, but it might cause us all to rethink some of our core assumptions about the campaign.
- Edwards shows virtually no significant demographic skews in his coalition, except that he is less popular among non-whites, and more popular in the Midwest than any other region. This makes me think that it isn't so much that Edwards's poverty message isn't resonating with African-Americans and non-whites per say, but rather than it is mainly resonating with rural and rust-belt voters. His message is connecting to the experience of a certain type of poverty, but not to the widespread urban poverty that is the more common in America.
I think, if anything, it is that last bit that simultaneously explains Edwards struggles among non-whties, and Hillary Clinton's recent gains. Where I think Edwards is truly struggling in this campaign is articulating a message, or in creating an image, that fits culturally with the contemporary urban experience that is widespread among the Democratic electorate. At the same time, this is an area in which Hillary Clinton is improving, and as such eating into Obama's base of support. Think about Obama's original sources of strength for a moment, using Pew's crosstabs from April as a touchstone. What sort of coalition combines African-Americans and the young with secular, liberal, wealthy, well-educated creative class types? Above all else, that is clearly an urban coalition, since all of those groups congregate heavily in major metropolitan areas. Now, Hillary Clinton is eating into the creative class portion of Obama's coalition, and Edwards is still having a difficult time appealing to that group of voters himself. For one reason or another, Edwards and Obama are not sealing the deal with the white, urban creative class, and Clinton is using their failure in that regard to further solidifiy her position in the polls.
As a full-time blogger who not only writes for an audience largely composed of urban and suburban creative class types, but who certainly fits into the urban, secular, liberal and well-educated categories himself, I think I can provide an explanation for the struggles Obama and Edwards are facing in this area. Before I even saw any poll numbers on the 2008 campaign, I wrote the following in late 2006:
I think Obama, simply in terms of his demeanor and his biography, strongly appeals to politicos from a new generation and a new socioeconomic class because he strikes them in some sort of gut, intuitive level as being from that class. Multi-ethnic, post-Vietnam, highly educated, raised in a major urban center--these are many of the cosmopolitan, self-creating, forward looking aspects of life for many younger professionals. As much as we may or may not like Bill Clinton, coming from a little town in Arkansas is not a story many Americans can relate to anymore, because we just didn't grow up that way. Even John Edwards's story of growing up in a mill town when the mill closed seems very, very rustic for a northeasterner such as myself, since our mills closed down sixty years ago to move to places like North Carolina. These rustic visions of America simply are not where people are at these days, especially news junkies and activists within the Democratic Party and the bluer parts of America. Those people instead look to places like Harlem, where Bill Clinton now keeps his offices. People moving into the gentrifying areas of Harlem probably like Barack Obama quite a bit, and probably feel some sort of gut-level, identity-based connection with him that they can't even quite put their finger on at this point.
In addition to everything I listed above, Obama is a former community organizer who is a member of the United Church of Christ. Basically, everything about his history oozes progressive, urban creative class. However, you know what does not appeal to progressive, urban, creative class types these days? A "post-partisan" message, and stories about growing up in mill towns in rural America. That is just so not where the urban, progressive creative class is at these days. Most people who fit into that category are rabidly and vehemently anti-Republican, even if they are not always overtly pro-Democrat. And you know what else? Hillary Clinton comes off as a lot more urban, progressive creative class than her husband (she even doesn't hesitate to use the term "progressive), and those voters might be more open to her in a primary campaign than they were to Bill back in 1992.
In short, from both Obama and Edwards, I am seeing a failure to deal the deal with those sections of the Democratic Party that were most open to them in the earlier stages of the campaign. The consistent support Edwards received from the blogosphere as demonstrated in straw polls, and the early crosstabs on Obama's support, both clearly showed that the urban, progressive creative class was fertile ground for them. However, to date, they are not piecing together the coalitions they need to win the nomination because the depth of support they had among those groups was never very deep and, for one reason or another, they both failed to lock down that potential support before many voters in that category started drifting back toward Clinton. For now, that is my hypothesis, and I am sticking to it. |
