Wednesday, August 17, 2011

538 on Perry's Electability

From Pondering Perry's Electability

Still, you have an interesting contrast between Mr. Perry, who won a lot of elections in an exceptionally Republican state, and Mr. Romney, who won just one election in a very blue state. When Mr. Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he was practically the only Republican in the state to have won that year; Democrats took the races for United States Senate, attorney general, secretary of the commonwealth, state treasurer, and state auditor, none being especially close. They won all 10 United States House seats, 33 of the 40 State Senate seats, and a 136-to-24 majority in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Most other candidates who have won their party’s nomination have at least one such overachieving performance. Barack Obama won election to the United States Senate in 2004 with an overwhelming 43-point margin, albeit against a very weak opponent. George W. Bush was elected Texas governor by 37 points in 1998. Bill Clinton ran for governor of Arkansas six times, losing once, but winning on three other occasions by at least 25 percentage points. Ronald Reagan defeated Pat Brown, the Democratic incumbent governor of California, by 15-point margin in 1966; although California was not as blue then as it is today, it is fairly rare to defeat an incumbent governor by that margin under any circumstances. Lyndon Johnson won his three Senate terms by an average of 40 points. Results like these are more the hallmark of having a mass-market brand.


We can pray that this is the case!

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