Noam Scheiber
The
New Republic
One small note of caution in reading
the otherwise impressive results
for Obama last night: As
I mentioned, Obama improved
his showing among white
Catholics in
Virginia (a 49-48 lead)
relative to
Missouri (a 46-50 deficit)
the week before. (I use Missouri
as a baseline because it was a
tight race and didn't really
favor Obama demographically.)
But, if you look at
Maryland, which was supposed
to be the friendliest of the
three, Obama actually did worse
among white Catholics there than
in Virginia or Missouri,
trailing Hillary 48-41.
I think there are a few
things going on here: First, the
white Catholics in Maryland are
probably more likely to be white
ethnics--i.e., first-, second-,
or third-generation Irish,
Italian, Polish--than are
Catholics in Missouri and
certainly those in Virginia.
(Perusing the Almanac of
American Politics, it looks
like St. Louis at least is much
more Germanic than Baltimore.)
So we're probably talking about
a slightly different demographic
here. Second, Hillary had the
support of a leading
white-ethnic politician in
Maryland--Governor and former
Baltimore mayor Tommy Carc..., I
mean Martin O'Malley--something
she didn't have in Missouri.
Having said that, if you
could look only at white
ethnics, I bet you'd find Obama
closing that gap in recent
weeks, too. My point in flagging
Maryland is just to say that
he's not quite there yet,
whereas you might think he
was based on the white Catholic
numbers elsewhere.
And, of course, it's white
ethnics who are going to
be critical in Ohio and
Pennsylvania.
