PPP had an interesting tweet today saying that Hillary Clinton led both Rand Paul and Marco Rubio in head to head matchups in the state. This wasn't TOO surprising considering there were polls taken during the primaries in 2008 showing her ahead in states like KY, WV, etc. But it's interesting to see that electing a black president twice has not turned Appalachia permanently against the Democratic Party.
Electoral vote had a hypothetical Clinton vs. McCain state by state matchup before she dropped out of the race in 2008. A lot of odd results are there, with the usual caveats being that both bases usually consolidate after a primary. Basically, it's doubtful Delaware and Maryland would be in single digits, and it's also doubtful Clinton would have carried Arkansas by double digits. But some other interesting things in this map stand out:
- Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New Hampshire, not even being close.
- Clear cushion leads in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, but trailing in Virginia (?, perhaps base consolidation would have helped there).
- Ahead in Missouri, a state that has been trending red lately.
- Even being close in Oklahoma, the reddest state in the country in 2008.
- Having a clear lead in Kentucky, but in a hole in Tennessee, despite Tennessee always being a couple points more Democratic than Kentucky.
- Clear weakness in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.
A lot of these can be explained by the small volume of polls and the fact that they were taken across a broad 6 month time frame, but it is nevertheless still very interesting. Based on PPP's tweet and the hypothetical reception to a Clinton candidacy in some of these polls, I've constructed a hypothetical map if she ended up running against a generic GOPer with not much widespread appeal but relatively inoffensive, sort of like Romney. I also took into account demographic changes.
So what do you guys think, could it really be a national landslide, or would Clinton lose most of her red state appeal after a campaign?