New England is the least religious region in the entire country, with five of the six states in the region appearing among the ten least religious in the entire country. This is relevant to the 2008 nomination campaign because New Hampshire is situated in New England, and it is also relevant to the progressive non-white and / or non-Christian coalition I have long argued can transform the country's politics. Considering the former, the non-Christian vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary is enormous, reaching 31% in 2004, and probably passing one-third of the electorate in 2008. It also votes differently than other New Hampshire groups. For example, in 2004, Dean came within 4% of Kerry among non-Christians, whereas he lost the Christian vote by a little over 20% (mainly due to Kerry's strength among Catholics). As was also the case with African-Americans siding with Jesse Jackson in the 1988 primary, this is group of voters willing to turn to more liberal, less establishment candidates than the rest of the Democratic electorate.
This non-Christian vote that I have long believed can put Barack Obama, and only Barack Obama, over the top in New Hampshire against Hillary Clinton. His cosmopolitan background and liberal veneer provide him with an identify connection to this group that no other major Democratic candidate can match. I also believe that Obama's collapse among these voters was the primary cause for his collapse in New Hampshire starting in August (see graph in link for long-term New Hampshire trend lines). This is because, according to Pew's national crosstabs, from March / April to September / October, Obama lost a once enormous lead on Clinton among seculars nationwide, and seculars tend to vote nearly identically to other non-Christian groups. Back in the spring, Obama led Clinton among seculars by a whopping 25%. However, by the fall, Clinton led Obama among seculars by 10%. Given the size of the non-Christian vote in New Hampshire, that alone would account for a 10-point shift in favor of Clinton in the state, or more than half of the New Hampshire gains Clinton made on Obama from early August to early October in New Hampshire. Given the low percentage of African-Americans in both Iowa and New Hampshire, just like Howard Dean before him (although for different reasons) there is no path to the nomination for Obama without a significant victory among non-Christians. Losing that support among that group led me to write an epitaph for his campaign.
Recently, however, Rasmussen polls have shown Obama gaining ground on Clinton in New Hampshire, cutting her lead from 40-17 in mid-September, to 38-22 in late October, to 34-24 in early November. It now appears that two other polls will concur with Rasmussen's New Hampshire trend:
Two new reputable polls of New Hampshire Democratic Primary voters will show statistically significant drops in support for frontrtunner Hillary Clinton, Democrats who have seen those polls said today.
The polls will be released this weekend and are embargoed; though I'm not privy to the embargo agreement, I'll be a little vague out of respect for the polling organizations.
One of the polls shows that the gap between Clinton and Barack Obama narrowed by more than 10 points. Her biggest decline was seen among older voters.
The other shows Clinton's lead over Obama reduced by approximately 9 points.
John Edwards remains at about 15 percent in both.
Even with three polls now showing a closer campaign in New Hampshire, it remains to be seen if this is a real trend. There are at least seven reputable polling firms that have produced multiple public polls in New Hampshire, and eight if one counts Zogby as a "reputable pollster," which many of my polling friends do not. I remember back in mid-April, when half of all pollsters were showing a closer national campaign, and half were not. I jumped the gun and declared a closer campaign, despite warnings on doing so from Pollster.com. Only a week later, a slew of new polls demonstrated that the trend was actually still flat, and not long after that Clinton's advantage began to increase. I'm not jumping the gun and doing that again, not with a new five-poll average showing a consistently closer campaign in New Hampshire.
If Obama does come back in New Hampshire--and not just come back part of the way, but come back all the way to win--it will require not only a victory in Iowa, but regaining his advantage among non-Christians in the primary electorate. My feeling is that in order to pull that off, it will require a message emphasis on his background and progressivism, rather than on talks of reaching across the aisle, specific policies, or even in attacks on Clinton. At the start of the campaign, there was something about Obama that really attracted this group of voters, and he needs to remind them what that was. At the time, coverage surrounding Obama was mainly focused on his image and background, and that obviously played extremely well with Democratic non-Christians. There is no reason why he can't go into that well again, especially with Edwards engaging in regular assaults on Clinton and attracting a different demographic set of voter that could also draw from Clinton. If Obama can survive New Hampshire, maybe there is still hope for the non-Christian and / or non-white progressive coalition to form this primary campaign, even if I don't think Obama is a very good champion of that coalition anymore. At least putting it together would be a start, and coalitions can long outlive the trajectories of the politicians under which they originally form. I still have major doubts, but at least now I'll keep watching.
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