More on the differences between Ohio and Wisconsin (or whether they even apply)
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Theory 1: Dont look at demography: it's about timing and exposure
The
comments section to that Pollster.com post above also has an unusual volume of really interesting responses.
First, several point out things that neatly go with Chait's "Soz was right" item. Maybe, Chait's item suggests, Obama isnt polling as well among downscale whites in Ohio as he did in Wisconsin just because it is (or was, at the time) still two weeks out from the elections. High-education voters tend to also be high-information voters, who are already pretty aware of the stories and pictures of the race two weeks out. African-Americans are also more likely to have gotten informed about Obama relatively early on. But downscale whites are low-information voters with no a priori reason to dig into Obama the candidate, so they are presumably the last to catch up. And the numbers from previous primaries suggest that, the more they catch up, the more they veer away from the standard choice (Hillary).
The first several responses to the pollster item echo this line of thought in some ways. "In nearly ever state, Obama has skyrocketed in the polls in the last week or two before the election as people start to pay attention and candidates and staff and ads start showing up," says one; "In every state where Obama's put his feet on the ground and been able to campaign significantly, his share's gone upwards incredibly fast," says another. "Three reasons for the difference in the two states: 1) Time, 2) Time, and 3)Time," writes another: "Time for campaigning, time for ads to play, time for people to get involved (not everyone has nothing to do but follow politics) etc, etc."
Obama's campaign has the boots on the ground to spread the message - see
that Time story I posted on the Obama thread. "It's the ground game," says a commenter; "Obama has put together a ground operation and GOTV effort in every state. Clinton, on the other hand, expected to have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday. There was no game plan after that." And the Teamsters and the United Food & Commercial Workers union have just endorsed Obama: "Who gets the voters out to the polls? Sixty thousand Teamster households in Ohio don't hurt!"
What's more, several posters point out, Obama has the funding edge that's especially important in these last two weeks before the elections:
This looks to me like a matter of spending schedules. The closest poll [in Wisconsin] in terms of time frame to the Post/ABC poll [for Ohio] is the Feb 6-7 ARG poll, which showed Clinton up 50-41. That looks pretty close to the 50-43 result [in the WaPo/ABC Ohio poll].
I mean, he outspent her 5-1 in Wisconsin (and from everything I've heard, it should be about 3-1 in Ohio). It doesn't make any sense to compare polls from two weeks out with election day results when the spending is so lopsided. Public opinion doesn't happen in a vacuum
In terms of exposure though, Obama does face one specific regional disadvantage in Ohio, points out another commenter:
throw in the fact that Wisconsin shares borders and media markets with Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota which have all voted, while Ohio shares borders with Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania which haven't voted, and Michigan where no advertising was conducted, and you have very different exposure.
Another disadvantage is that "in Ohio, Hillary has the backing of a popular Democratic governor (Strickland) as she does in Pennsylvania as well. In Wisconsin, Doyle backed Obama."
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Theory 2: The cultural difference between downscale whites in Ohio and their counterparts in Wisconsin suggest a different outcome.
Then there is a whole different line of thought. Downscale whites in Ohio are just not the same as downscale whites in Wisconsin. Culturally speaking, they represent very different perspectives.
I saw a blog item the other day that highlighted this. It argued that one major difference is that racism is more open and widespread among working class whites in Rust Belt states like Ohio and Pennsylvania than among their counterparts in states in the upper Midwest, like Minnesota or Wisconsin. Blacks form a larger share of the population, there is a history of racial tension, and whites are more often "white ethnics", like Italians and Irish, who have more of a history of competition with African Americans.
I cant find back that blog post, but this commenter in this Pollster post takes the same angle:
Could it be that whites in Ohio are slightly different ethnically from whites in Wisconsin. Is there any data to show that Ohio's white population has a higher percentage of Polish and Italian and other early 20th century immigration, while Wisconsin has a more "19th century" white ethnic makeup of Danish, German, Scotch extraction. The former may be more shaped by an urban experience that included at least some degree of racial tension. The latter, by contrast, probably has a more rural outlook that is marked by an absence of such tensions, and is therefore more progressive on race.
(Another poster provided the data: "Wisconsin definitely has a much larger number of ethnic Germans (and more ethnic Scandinavians as well). 2000 census says that 43% of Wisconsinites identified their ancestry as German, second highest number in the country to North Dakota. Ohio only has 25% identifying as German.")
I am also an Ohio native and have spent time in Wisconsin since my parents moved to Chicago's northern suburbs.
One unfortunate but true comparison - there seems to be a lot more bigotry in Ohio than in Wisconsin.
My birthplace, Cleveland, has become a city filled with racially-motivated gang violence. Cincinnati and Dayton (U.D. graduate) were horribly racist when I lived there.
I haven't had that same experience in Wisconsin.
However, a commenter further down fiercely disagrees, pointing out that Milwaukee, Wisconsin is "one of the five most segregated cities in the United States," and "has, for many decades, had one of the most racist police departments in the country [..] The racial tensions in Milwaukee are high and growing higher all the time."
"I was born and raised in Milwaukee and am of German ancestry on both sides," he says, and "to argue that Germans are somehow less prejudiced against blacks than other Americans would be funny if it weren't so blindly stupid."
Instead, he offers, "What makes Ohio more politically conservative than Wisconsin is the evangelicals in the southern part of the state. Southern Ohio might as well be Dixie in many places." Another poster echoes the "Southern factor":
Don't downscale whites in the upper Midwest tend to vote differently from downscale whites in the Ohio River Valley? I've never lived in Ohio, and I'm certainly not an expert on the region, but aren't there parts of southern Ohio that are much more like "the South" than is any part of Wisconsin? Remember that Obama has done worst among rural Southern whites. If there are parts of Ohio that are more like the rural parts of TN and VA that Obama did poorly in than any part of Wisconsin, might that account for part of the difference?
Well, all of that just from the
first half of the comments; very enlightening if you're interested, like me, in all the various cultural and geographical characteristics in play.
Now for Soz to weigh in from Columbus, Ohio!
