Final Thoughts As Indiana Votes

John and I will be live blogging the results tonight from the ElectionDissection.com election bunker. One county I’m going to be focused on is Indiana’s Lake County. As I mentioned in my post last week, Lake County is one where Obama must do well if he’s going to win. It has a sizable African American population (25%) and is situated just across the Illinois border and Chicago. Thus, it is served by Chicago media and should be highly familiar with Obama, his record, and his candidacy.

Yesterday, Indiana politics guru Brian Howey did a chat on Washingtonpost.com. Talking about Lake County, he said:

“I asked Obama last week if his organizing activities extended across the stateline into Indiana. He said that as the steel mills closed, there were many Hoosiers in the churches and parishes he worked with, and a number of his Illinois neighbors migrated to Indiana. Yes, it's one large economic entity, all inter connected. Obama was expected to have an advantage in NW Indiana, but local sources believe the race has tightened up there. And it was hard to miss the racial fault lines in Da Region. Gary Mayor Clay, Sen. Earline Rogers and a number of African-Americans endorsed Obama; but a number of white mayors from Whiting, Hammond, Crown Point and Hobart sided with Hillary. If Obama loses the 1st Congressional District, he won't win Indiana. It was also noteworthy that Rep. Pete Visclosky didn't take a side. If he had endorsed either one, it would have been a big lift.”

Lake County, as Howey suggests, has an interesting, if troubled, political and economic history. Largely created by the steel industry—and subject to its growth and decline—the area is a microcosm of the white ethnic working class/African American tension that I’ve written a lot about here. When the economy was booming the blue collar whites (many first or second generation Americans) prospered along with blacks drawn north during the Great Migration. When economic fortunes declined, fault lines emerged. The city of Gary, for example, has seen its population decline by half since 1960. In his 1964 challenge to LBJ, George Wallace actually won Lake County in the Indiana primary (and received 16% in the '68 general vs. 11% statewide). Bobby Kennedy's campaign was given a lift with his victory in the '68 Democratic primary, aided by his deft handling of the tense racial dynamics of the county. Kennedy biographer Joseph Palermo describes the campaign here.

Despite these underlying tensions, the county has a solid Democratic voting history. The only time the Republicans captured the county, since Eisenhower's presidency, was in Nixon's 1972 landslide. It has given the Democratic nominee over 55% since 1984 and even Ross Perot's reformist message failed to resonate as he underperformed here compared to his statewide and national average. Lake County also has a rather colorful history of political corruption. For some reading on this subject, see here, and here. Robert Pastrick, the longtime mayor of East Chicago, was defeated for re-election after a court ordered special election called amid widespread allegations of vote rigging. He is now a superdelegate pledged to Senator Clinton so Obama supporters might be wise to watch very closely as the returns come in.

A First Look At Indiana--Does Pennsylvania Teach Us Anything??

With a week to go before the double bill in North Carolina and Indiana, I thought I’d take a first look at the Hoosier state and size up Obama’s chances. Most of the recent polls I’ve seen up to this point show him trailing Senator Clinton, with varying margins. Assuming that the results in Pennsylvania will have some bearing on the Indiana vote (press coverage, Clinton momentum, etc.), I thought I’d use last week’s vote as a way to speculate on Indiana.

In the Pennsylvania primary, Obama won 7 counties (Centre, Chester, Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Philadelphia, and Union) on the way to capturing 46% of the statewide total. What we seem to be seeing as these contests progress is a dynamic where Obama’s vote tends to be concentrated in urban areas and inner ring suburbs, plus more outlying counties that have an academic/university/research presence that brings with it young voters and highly educated/high income professionals. Basically what we’re finding is that Obama does better in areas with more African American voters, higher median incomes, higher education levels, and fewer seniors. Using these basic points of comparison, we see that Obama is perhaps at a disadvantage in Indiana, relative to Pennsylvania (data available here):

Indiana Vs. Pennsylvania:

African American %: 8.7 vs. 10.4
Median Income: $45,394 vs. $46,259
% w/College Degree: 21.7 vs. 25.4
% 65 Years & Over: 12.4 vs. 15.1

Only on the age variable, does he fare more favorably than he did in Pennsylvania.

Running the numbers on the counties Obama won in Pennsylvania, I found that these counties provided 32% of the total votes cast statewide. Philadelphia, with 19% of the statewide vote, made up the bulk of this. Looking at Indiana, I’ve tried to identify counties that might be favorable to Obama. I would identify first Marion County (Indianapolis). Marion County is 24% African American which should bode well for Obama. Next is Lake County (Gary, Hammond). Lake County, part of the Chicago metropolitan area, is 25% African American. Third is St. Joseph County (home to Notre Dame). This county is 12% African American plus has a sizable student/university population. Fourth is Monroe County, centered around Bloomington and Indiana University. Monroe is only 3% African American but, as noted, has a large student/university population. Finally, La Porte County is 10% African American. In the 2004 election, all of these counties gave Kerry a victory with the exception of St. Joseph which narrowly went to Bush.

Can we use this county level data, plus the Pennsylvania results, to make some projections? Because we don’t have a recent Indiana primary to use as a baseline for predicting turnout, I decided to look at the 2004 general. Using 2004, we see that the counties I’ve identified as most favorable to Obama provided 29% of the statewide turnout. Comparing this to Pennsylvania, we see Obama perhaps in a worse position. The more rural counties provide a greater share of the vote in Indiana than they did in Pennsylvania. So, making the assumption that Obama wins those counties I identified, he might end up further behind than he did in Pennsylvania (this also assumes Pennsylvania like margins in the remaining counties). This also assumes he wins with comparable percentages. It is perhaps a stretch to think that he’ll match or exceed the 65% of the Philly vote he got in Indianapolis. Whereas Philadelphia is roughly 45% African American, Indianapolis is only one-quarter black.

So, based strictly on this cursory demographic examination, things don’t look so good in Indiana for Obama. How might he fare better? One variable working in his favor, as several commentators have noted, is the “Midwest” factor. Whereas Obama has had a problem in more “Appalachian” regions (see here), Indiana’s geography and ethnic patterns are a bit different. Furthermore, bordering his home state of Illinois, there will be a greater level of familiarity with him, especially in the northwestern corner of the state (Lake, La Porte, St. Joseph Counties). A second variable is the fact that Indiana, unlike Pennsylvania, is an open primary. Obama has consistently outperformed Clinton among independent and Republican leaning voters who have participated in Democratic contests this year. So, to the degree that Obama is able to close the gap with Clinton in Indiana, it would seem that it's these voters that he’ll have to rely on.