Moore: I Still Think Clinton Wins RI Tomorrow
Monday, April 25, 2016
Most pundits disagree, but I believe former First Lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic Presidential Primary in Rhode Island tomorrow night.
During a recent CNN broadcast, John King, CNN's National Correspondent (a University of Rhode Island graduate), said "we'll give RI to Bernie Sanders", when analyzing the delegate race.
"How nice of him," I thought.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLet's face it: the Bernie Sanders campaign has been nothing short of impressive, and the passion of his supporters is commendable, but in the end, I believe he will come up short in Little Rhody, regardless of King and other pundits thoughts to the contrary.
Rhode Island has been Clinton Country for about 20 years running now. Since 1996, every time there has been a Clinton on the ballot in Rhode Island, he or she has prevailed. That phenomena was highlighted by our last Presidential Primary, in 2008. In that race, Hillary Clinton bested Barack Obama by almost 20 percentage points.
I'll never forget that race. What stands out in my mind was the difference in the enthusiasm between the two campaigns.
History
The two campaigns held rallies less than one week apart at the same location--Rhode Island College. One would think, given the fact that we all know Hillary won the primary handily, that she would have had a larger contingent of supporters at her rally. That however, couldn't have been further from the truth
Obama had an overflow crowd, with people forced to stand outside and listen on loud speakers. Clinton, on the other hand, could barely fill up half of the field house.
The lesson that I gleaned from covering the astonishing turn of events was that what matters most in elections is having more supporters--not the more enthusiastic supporters. Ideally, it would be nice to have both. But if a candidate had to pick one, they'd be better off ten times out of ten with more, albeit less passionate, supporters.
Lesson Learned
Yet despite the popularity of Sanders with the state's progressives, it's hard to believe that the Senator from Vermont will be able to piece together enough votes to overcome the Clinton juggernaut.
I believe that same type of scenario as 2008 will play out again in this year's election. I don't think I'm going out on a limb by suggesting that the Sanders supporters are more enthusiastic. That's obvious on social media and elsewhere.
Yet as 2008 showed us, just because a candidate has the more enthusiastic supporters doesn't mean he will win.
Flawed Analysis?
None of this is to say the only reason that I believe Clinton will prevail tomorrow is solely based on history. As the old saying goes: last week's points don't win this week's games.
Yet the rationale being used by some pundits to predict victory is, in my humble opinion, based on flawed rationale. For instance, Alan I. Abramowitz, a columnist and number cruncher for Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, from the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, gives Sanders the edge because the state has a relatively low number of African American voters and, what's more, a larger number of independents taking part in the primary.
But are the the vast majority of the people in Rhode Island who affiliate as "unaffiliated", which is commonly referred to as independent, really independent? I think not.
Not so "independent"
If Rhode Island's "independent voters" were really so undecided, it would stand to reason that the state would elect Republicans--at least now and again. Yet the state hasn't had a Republican statewide office holder since Don Carcieri left office. And Democrats have dominated the General Assembly for about 80 years.
Given that fact, I consider most of Rhode Island's independent voters to be Democrats. That suggests that the voter models that give Sanders an edge due to the high presence of Democrats totally flawed.
In the end, if Clinton prevails it will be due to her unparalleled level of experience and the electorate's familiarity with her. Further, Rhode Island is a highly unionized state, and Clinton has the support of most unions, at least on the national level. (Clinton also has the support of the state's Democratic establishment, but that means nothing at best, and could be a liability in a year like this.)
Trump to win "Yuge"
Admittedly, it does remain a wild card whether or not the Clinton camp can turn out voters in the state's urban core to high enough levels to seal the victory, while maintaining her traditional support levels in places like Johnston, Cranston, and Warwick. I believe Clinton will.
On the Republican side, Trump will win and win big. So there's no drama there.
Fortunately, we have a hotly contested Democratic Primary to keep us in suspense.
Russell Moore has worked on both sides of the desk in Rhode Island media, both for newspapers and on political campaigns. Send him email at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @russmoore713.
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