Even though New Hampshire is holding their ‘first in the nation’ presidential primaries today for both the Democratic and Republican parties, there is a sense that both parties have largely decided that this will be a Biden versus Trump rematch. Since thus far only Iowa (a caucus, not a primary) has already voted, this raises the specter that for the first half of 2024, the supposedly tumultuous year for democracy, primaries might be more pro-forma and anti-climactic, the winners already decided, with national attention perhaps focused elsewhere, i.e. court or congressional battles.   

On the Republican side, while twenty-four names plus one write-in line appear on the ballot, the race is between former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former President Donald Trump. Haley has been hoping for an upset win where most polls show her trailing by between 15 to 25 points. While Governor Ron DeSantis’ withdrawal might have moved (a small number of) voters over to Trump in the state, DeSantis’ endorsement of Trump was likely more impactful nationally in giving Trump the sense of inevitability of becoming the nominee. Nationally Haley is barely able to crack double digits against Trump’s two-thirds to three quarters of Republican support.

The Haley team is hoping that a strong showing, beating expectations in New Hampshire, will help set the stage for the February 24^th primary in her home state of South Carolina, and then run competitive with Trump in the (oftentimes pivotal) early March Super Tuesday contests. (Perhaps aided by any legal troubles Trump might encounter.) While Haley has secured the endorsement of New Hampshire’s Governor, Chris Sununu and is seen as having attracted a coalition of traditional Republicans, Never Trumpers and some cross over independent voters (primaries are not open to Democratic-affiliated voters), significant obstacles remain going forward. The South Carolina primary is another month away, where it might be challenging to maintain momentum. Nevada will hold a primary earlier on February 6^th, and Trump is far ahead in a state where he has a significant business presence. South Carolina is also an uphill battle for Haley, where Trump has secured the endorsement of most of the congressional delegation, the two Senators and the incumbent Governor, and where he leads by over twenty points in most recent polls.

So, while Governor Haley has taken a somewhat more combative tone in the New Hampshire primary, and where this race bears the most watching tonight, to see at least if she exceeds expectations, going forward it appears that she would need to do some very persuasive arm twisting in her home state alone to stay viable even there.  My prediction here is that she her tally is within 15 – 25 points of Trump, (no surprise like John McCain’s 2000 upset, in other words), and she drops out by Nevada.

***

Meanwhile, the Democratic Primary …

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side … there are twenty-one names plus the write-in on the Democratic New Hampshire primary ballot, but President Biden’s name will not listed be among them. He is waging a write-in campaign instead. New rules from the Democratic National Committee sought to have greater diversity in earlier voting contests in the presidential primaries and officially moved, (where the DNC is concerned), South Carolina as the first state to hold an official primary contest. New Hampshire Democrats have pushed back against the proposal and noted that their state law provides for a presidential primary to be held at least seven days prior to any other state. The state Democratic Party affirmed their date, citing state law, prompting push back from the DNC, saying that they cannot accept this exercise as determinative of delegate selection to this summer’s national convention, using in some correspondence the word ‘meaningless,’ prompting yet more pushback from state officials.

The end result is that while Biden is not officially campaigning in New Hampshire, a number of New Hampshire Biden supporters staged a write-in campaign for the incumbent President anyway. It might be noted that this is not the first time a state’s Democratic primary came in conflict with the DNC, the most notable instances perhaps being that of Michigan and Florida in 2008, where those states moved their primaries up to January 15^th and 29th, respectively. Both delegations were initially halved that summer as a result, before finally being restored to full voting rights on the eve of that year’s convention.  One would be hard pressed to argue that the dustup had an adverse effect on Democratic chances that fall, with Barack Obama carrying MIchigan by nearly seventeen percentage points, Florida was closer but still decisive at just under a three percent margin for Obama.

Biden’s two main challengers are author and activist Marriane Williamson, who previously ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 and Minnesota Congressman Dean Philips, seen as more moderate and in some circles as a more serious challenger to the incumbent president. Williamson aligns more on the progressive left, with calls for such reforms to address poverty, the environment and large investments in education and healthcare. Phillips, from Minnesota’s suburban 3^rd Congressional District, has tacked centrist on such issues as Israel and belongs to the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress.  His campaign has been arguably hampered by a series of missteps, however, including criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris, (where he later apologized) and some flirtation with a White House bid under the No Labels banner, even if he later ruled it out.

Nationally Williamson and Phillips are well back in the single digits in polling where Biden far outpaces them with close to two-third to three quarters support. In New Hampshire, however, Biden is polling in the 50s/60s range whereas Phillips’ support ranges anywhere from 6 – 32% based on the current month’s polling. If the narrative on the Republican side shifts towards a Trump coronation, which it will likely do if he beats Haley by 20% or more, the story tonight might be Biden’s numbers, especially should they be less than 60%, by any standards low for an incumbent president. While there is a discernable hunger for a 2024 contest other than a Biden/Trump rematch, New Hampshire is likely not the state to deliver a harsh verdict to Biden given that the younger, more diverse cross section of voters polling suggests is more dissatisfied with the Biden candidacy are not as represented in this state.

Thus, it is unlikely that we will hear from Biden a 1968 Lyndon Johnson speech “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President” after LBJ won only half of the vote in that year’s NH primary against (also from Minnesota) Senator Eugene McCarthy.  Phillips simply does not have the name recognition and profile that McCarthy did, nor are the Democrats as divided as they were in 1968 to give Biden immediate pause. But a low level, i.e., <60%, could certainly harm Biden.

New Hampshire only saw an incumbent President defeated once in their primaries, with Harry Truman losing to Tennessee Senator Eastes Kefauver in 1952 (and hastening his withdrawal from the race). More recently, Jimmy Carter won only 48% when he ran against Senator Edward Kennedy for renomination, although given Kennedy was from a neighboring state, that 48% was seen as a more decisive victory. On the Republican side, Nixon only won 68% in 1972, in his bid for renomination, although his neither of his opponents had a high profile and he won the general in a landslide. Ford (50% in 1976) and Bush Sr., (53% in 1992) fought contested primaries, however, and that threshold of support augured badly for their re-election bids later on. Biden can always spin it as the difference as write-in, as opposed to fully engaged campaigning, but lacking any suspenseful narrative on the Republican side, he needs considerably more than 50% to shut down any underground campaign that his reelection bid is in serious trouble.

My prediction here is Biden gets at least 60% of the vote, and likely falls within the range of 60% – 75% to keep moving forward. Phillips and Williamson might remain in the race, but their overall polling stays mostly below 10%.

The irony of this exercise is that more likely than not, the expected tumultuous 2024 will start out quietly on the primary front, with both parties lining up behind their prospective tickets (unusually) early, with successive primaries already being a foregone conclusion, along with lower voter turnout and people largely tuning out until at least the summer conventions. Certainly litigation with the Republican frontrunner could upend that, although the attention would likely be on the courtroom, not the ballot box. We might reasonably expect polling for the general to show a dead heat, or with some polling with Trump ahead in the low/mid-single digits with third parties on the ballot. I would expect things to get more heated in the second half of the year, with some polling possibly changing at that point, so analysts and voters alike might appreciate a less intense primary season before the main event truly gets underway.

Update 10.30 pm: At this point 90% + of the vote is in. Donald Trump is slightly over 50%. DeSantis is slightly ahead of Haley, outside my predicted margin of 2%, although that may tighten. The following map is for second place, Trump appears to have won all 99 counties. The lighter shaded areas indicate where the vote is less than 80% in. Brown-shaded is for DeSantis, green-shaded for Haley. The counties with stripes denote larger urban centers. As predicted, Haley did well in urban centers but not as well as she likely needed to, as DeSantis is narrowly ahead in the largest county, Polk, where the capital Des Moines is located. DeSantis also did well in the critical northwest section that promised to be a battleground of sorts for second place. At this point, it appears that DeSantis is on track to outperform polling expectations and place second, albeit not by a lot. Haley still has some vote outstanding in Waterloo (Black Hawk) and Cedar Rapids (Linn) which might help keep the distance between her and DeSantis < 2%. Map is as of 10.15 pm, so does not convey real-time results, more for purposes of illustrating where each candidate’s respective strength is.

Update 8.17 pm: Very preliminary returns, as expected race has been called for Trump. When I post this it will likely still have 95% of precincts and votes still outstanding. Thus far race looks like a nail bitter for the crucial second place with Haley and DeSantis seesawing back and forth between 2nd & 3rd. DeSantis is doing somewhat better in the northwest section of the state and a shade better than I would have expected in the urban areas. Trump might fall below 50%. I am curious if there have been any empirical studies on the psychology of Iowa Caucus goers voting in real time if they are aware that a race has already been called. It appears the answer is no and no, i.e. I can’t seem to find any empirical studies at first glance and no calling a race does not, at this point, appear to have changed much minds if Trump’s % is slightly falling, as opposed to rising.

The 2024 U.S. election year kicks off with the Republican Iowa caucuses, a quadrennial event going back to 1976 for that party, and touted as first in the nation in the presidential selection process.  Iowa caucuses have had some success in predicting eventual nominees, although in this instance the true race may be for second place, while the cold sub-zero temperatures raise questions as to overall turnout.

The caucus date also falls on the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, observed the third Monday each January. This happened previously with the Iowa Caucuses in 2004. While the Republican Party initially set the date, (some claiming it was an accident or oversight), and there was some concern that the ‘first-in-the-nation’ caucus might divert a fair amount of national attention from the holiday itself, the state Democratic Party ultimately ended up chosing the same date for their caucuses and pledged to honor the Civil Rights leader’s legacy during the meetings.

A caucus differs from a primary in that the latter is essentially an party election that selects a political party’s standard bearers in the general election, whereas a caucus is a meeting of party members in person where speeches are made and other party business might also arise. 

The Iowa caucuses will be held at various precinct locations beginning at 7 p.m. local time that evening and on the Republican side will have two main items of business – holding a binding vote on the presidential nominee and selecting delegates to attend county conventions, part of a multistep process of selecting the delegates who will ultimately attend the national convention later this summer. 

Monday, January 15th	Iowa GOP Precient Caucuses
Saturday, Februrary 13th	Iowa Caucus County Convention
Saturday, April 6th	Iowa Republican Party District Conventions
Saturday, May 4th	Iowa State Republican Party Convention

The contest awards delegates in proportion to votes received.

The Democrats will also hold caucuses on their side but more for the purposes of party business and delegate selection, the actual vote for the nominee will occur by mail and will be announced in early March.  Selected delegates would be bound by the results of the mail-in voting.

Due to the length of time in making the delegate selection, Iowa has traditionally been towards the front of the line in the presidential nominating process.  With some of the candidacies historically, such as George McGovern in 1972 (defying expectations with a credible second place finish) and Jimmy Carter four years later, Iowa was seen at least in part as a tipping point to propel them forward to the nomination and, in Carter’s case, the White House. 

By contrast, George H.W. Bush won Iowa in 1980, claimed to have the ‘big mo’ (momentum) and then proceeded to lose that year’s race to the nomination to Ronald Reagan.  Iowa has notably helped two incumbent presidents fend off significant primary challenges, with Ford narrowly winning over Reagan in 1976 and Carter racking up a stronger margin against challenger Ted Kennedy in 1980.

As the following chart indicates, Iowa caucuses have portended the eventual Republican nominee 7/12 times, and 9/13 times on the Democratic side (the Democrats first having starting the caucuses in 1972, four years earlier than the Republicans).

Year	R Caucus Winner	Winner as Nominee		D Caucus Winner	Winner as Nominee
1972	not held that year	n/a		Uncommitted, then Edmund Muskie	No, George McGovern 2nd
1976	Gerald Ford	Yes, Reagan close 2nd		Uncommitted, then Jimmy Carter	Yes
1980	George H.W. Bush	No, Reagan close 2nd		Jimmy Carter	Yes, wide margin over Kennedy
1984	Ronald Reagan	Effectively unopposed		Walter Mondale	Yes
1988	Bob Dole	No		Richard Gephardt	No
1992	George H.W. Bush	Yes, Caucuses not contested		Tom Harkin	No
1996	Bob Dole	Yes		Bill Clinton	Effectively Unopposed
2000	George W. Bush	Yes		Al Gore, Jr.	Yes
2004	George W. Bush	Effectively Unopposed		John Kerry	Yes
2008	Mike Huckabee	No		Barack Obama	Yes
2012	Richard Santorum	No, Romney close 2nd		Barack Obama	Effectively Unopposed
2016	Rafael “Ted” Cruz	No		Hillary Clinton	Yes, Sanders nearly tied
2020	Donald Trump	Yes		Peter Buttigieg	Buttigieg, by delegates, Bernard Sanders, by votes

This year, however, the Iowa vote might not be as much of a portent of the election winner as much as following the overall national polling which suggests that former President Donald Trump is anywhere from 30 to 50 percentage points ahead of his nearest GOP rivals in the country as a whole.  On the state level, the polling suggests Trump has at least 50% of the vote, with former Florida Governor Ronald DeSantis around 15%, and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley with slightly higher support.  In terms of local endorsements, DeSantis won the endorsement of Governor Kim Reynolds as well as a signficant number of state legislators and evangelical leaders, while members of the congressional delegation have shied away from aligning with any of the candidates.

Last year’s Iowa Straw Poll, unscientific but widely seen as indicative of overall voter sentiment, placed Donald Trump with the most votes at 42.47%, followed by Ron DeSantis (15.31%), Tim Scott (11.09%), and Vivek Ramaswamy (9.37%).  Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was well back at slightly under 4%. DeSantis is seen as having a good ground game in visiting all 99 counties, dubbed “the full Grassley” after the long time Senator who held constituency meetings annually in all the state’s counties.

The final Des Moines Register poll showed Trump just shy of 50%, DeSantis basically the same at 16% and Hailey up to 20%, indicating that she had gained the most ground during the campaign. It should be noted that the poll has had some significant predictive ability in the caucuses, but some misses as well, for instance correctly predicting Barack Obama’s initial 2008 win over Hillary Clinton but not predicting Ted Cruz’s win in 2016 over Donald Trump.

The following map will not actually be shaded this way, (as Trump is expected to win most of the counties), but serves as a rough guide to the places where DeSantis and Haley need to do especially well in order to make second place and keep momentum going forward. 

Iowa as a whole has trended more Republican over the last two presidential campaigns, although the darker shades of Republican red (on the conventional general election maps) masking a rural/urban divide where Des Moines, and Sioux Falls have trended more towards the Democratic Party, and Waterloo and Davenport have remained solid Democratic strongholds.

The urban counties are those that Florida Senator Marco Rubio carried in the state’s 2016 caucuses, the same counties where Nikki Haley (green-shaded) will at least need to place a solid second to entrench that status going forward to other primaries.

Many of the central counties, some towards the northwest, north central and south central, are where prior more evangelical-based candidates such as Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz did well in their respective 2008, 2012 and 2016 campaigns, and where Ron DeSantis (brown-shaded) would need to place strongly in to remain discernably in second place overall to former President Trump. The Sioux City northwest section might end up being pivotal in the race for second, this was an area where both Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz did relatively well in and where the same dynamics between Haley and DeSantis could play out.

Trump could win close to, if not all 99 counties at more than 50 percent support. The red-shaded Fremont county at the very southwestern corner of the map above was indicative of the part of the state where he did the most strongly in 2016, even as he narrowly lost the state to Ted Cruz.

So where will the road go through the GOP Caucus and Iowa and potentially beyond?

For Donald Trump – while there has been some speculation as to whether or not he will make 50% of the vote, the fact remains that if he does not, virtually all polls put him over 40%, where for context the highest Iowa GOP caucus total in an open contest (without an incumbent President) the previous record was George W. Bush’s 41% in 2000. If he can’t beat 41%, that might be construed as a sign of weakness, otherwise he can claim to have set a new record. According to the Des Moines Register poll, enthusiasm for his campaign runs highest of all candidates, (49% extremely enthusiastic, 39% very enthusiastic and 82% firmly committed) which likely makes the wintry weather less of a factor for his final numbers. (Thanks to NBC for making the full .pdf available.)

For Ron DeSantis – the key will be to hold onto second place, consistent with broad expectations, and there are some indications he can still do this despite the late polling. showing Haley inching ahead. The same Des Moines Register poll had more modest levels of ethusiasm, 62% extremely or very ethusiastic, but still far ahead of Nikki Haley’s extremely or very ethusiastic measure at 39%. The best case scenario at this point would likely be to at poll within 10 points of Trump, the next best would be to poll 10 points ahead of Haley if still far behind Trump, the third best would be to poll a few points ahead of Haley, then tie Haley or something close to a tie (say within 2 percentage points), the worst case scenario would be to lose second spot by more than 2 points, which would likely have adverse effects on fundraising and momentum going forward. To any extent that he exceeds opinion poll numbers, expect his campaign to spin this as a win. According to the recent-most Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) road condition map, the crucial areas in the rural north have more drivable roads, another plus factor where DeSantis will likely need to secure a large number of his votes to secure second place.

For Haley – best case scenario at this point is run 10 points within Trump or, failing that, 5-10 points ahead of DeSantis to dethrone him as the main alternative to Trump, and benefit from momentum, including fundraising, going forward, especially with New Hampshire. A tie could still be spun as a win, since she discernably gained the most ground in opinion poll surveys. Any less than 2-3 percentage ponits behind DeSantis, however, and that could alter the narrative of her as the main alternative to Trump as the race moves to New Hampshire. She will likely poll in the same urban areas of the state where Marco Rubio did well in 2016, however some of those areas, i.e. Cedar Rapids, are where roads are most adversely affected by the weather. If the race for second is tight, this could help DeSantis more.

The bottom line from this race for 2024 is that Trump remains the favorite for the Republican nomination, the race for the GOP-Trump alternative being far less clear. Trump will ulimately benefit the longer this lack of clarity persists. He also benefits if the main alternative has less cross-over appeal within the party, which judging by both state and national polls of Republicans, would appear to be Haley, not DeSantis. However – the harder Trump attacks Haley, that might risk giving some more moderate general election voters pause. If DeSantis preserves standing as the main alternative to Trump, he can potentially take more votes away from the former President in a primary and potentially deny him the nomination, but Trump’s attacks on DeSantis “DeSanctimonious” could potentially help him in a general election.

So the dynamics are multi-layered, but the weather and the backdrop remain the same as they have been for the past decade or so. A hard road for the Trump alternative, a polarizing, cold climate politically and seemingly impassable roads in Washington to get much of anything done, whether it is something major like immigration or something temporary like a continuing resolution.

Usually my predictions are based on one outcome, i.e. candidate a wins or not, and I mark my prediction right or wrong. In this case, however, I don’t see it as a mark of political acumen to predict a race where polls have consistently indicated the same likely winner over many months. Therefore, I am predicting three things, all of which have to be met for me to consider calling this race correctly.

1. Trump wins at least at the mid-40s if not over 50%
2. DeSantis and Haley are within 2 points of each other and both either spin it as a tie, or surpassing expectations
3. Both continue forward without suspending their campaigns prior to New Hampshire

Can Democrat Doug Jones win in Alabama this December 12th?

The road to the U.S. Senate may lie through Talladega County, but the underlying Republican tendencies of the state may be hard for Jones and the Democrats to overcome

Future Democratic victories will likely be a smaller set of counties, increasingly urban and less dependent on the rural white population in the state

* * *

The polls suggest that the Alabama Special Election for U.S. Senate is a “tossup” but barring the unexpected, such as further allegations of sexual misconduct, or an officially endorsed Republican write-in campaign by the RNC, Roy Moore will likely become Alabama’s next Senator, probably by a margin of 2-5 percentage points on election day.

Elections are supposedly determined by three factors in varying degrees – party, campaign and candidates. Alabama is one of the most Republican states in the country. Counties that trend Republican do so much quicker, to a much greater extent and are overall a lot more numerous than the very few counties that trend Democrat in this state. Simply put, the Republicans have a lot more room for error if a particular locality does not deliver a needed margin. The Democrats have no such margin of error.

ALABAMA POLITICS – THE LAST 50 YEARS SUMMARIZED

The last time Democrats predominated in this state is measured not in years but in decades. Nearly two decades ago was the last time a candidate for Governor won election, a quarter century ago that the last Democrat won a U.S. Senate election and more than four decades ago that a Presidential candidate carried the state. Since that time, and especially in the last ten years, the political map has been redrawn significantly.

The gradual shift towards the Republicans which began with Barry Goldwater’s decisive win here in 1964 became a stampede in the mid-2000s. The once solidly Democrat blue state (except for Winston County, as readers of How to Kill a Mockingbird might recall) has now seen most of the rural, predominantly white parts of the state move decisively towards the Republicans, taking with them all the statewide offices, elected judicial positions, plus both chambers of the State Legislature. Here in Tennessee, the joke is that the entire Democratic State Senate caucus can now fit inside a minivan. In Alabama, it would be augmented by two but still quite possibly the case if you had a full-size van.

The last statewide election win by a Democrat was a very narrow win (less than 1%) by Lucy Baxley for the Public Service Commission in 2008, carrying 37 counties in so doing. She would lose the next election four years later by more than an 8% margin.

An election in 2006 for the Lieutenant Governor may be more instructive. In that year, a year good for Democrats nationally, Democrat Jim Folsom Jr., son of the famous Governor “Big Jim” Folsom and himself both previously a Governor and Lieutenant Governor in his own right, narrowly eked out a win over Republican Luther Strange (the current U.S. Senator) in carrying 45 counties. This was Strange’s first run for statewide office. The map below shows how each county voted in that election.

As you can see in the picture to the left, as recently as 2006 there could be a lot of Democratic blue on the Alabama political map, even if most of it was lightly-shaded. It is worth noting that a lot of the red on the map is also lightly shaded. You might note that in the northern part of the state, and especially in the very upper left (north-west) corner, there were several light blue counties.

In the grand scheme of things, 11 years may not seem like a lot of time. One might reasonably conclude that the political map of a Democratic Doug Jones victory in Alabama might look something like this map here. All you would have to do is fill in the light blue on a 2017 Special Senate election map to approximately match the map above, right?

NOT SO FAST!!!!

CURRENT ALABAMA POLITICAL CLIMATE

This map is more indicative of the current political climate in Alabama today. It shows the results of last year’s U.S. Presidential election, where the Republican Trump/Pence ticket won the state over the Democratic H. Clinton/Kaine ticket by some 28 points. While this is not a Republican high water mark (Goldwater and Nixon easily surpassed Trump’s 62% win) this map falls roughly in line with the political map since 2004 at the Presidential level (save for Jefferson County/Birmingham – the isolated light blue island towards the center of the map – which has trended from light red to light blue over the same period).

The basic rule of thumb is now this – dark red in the north outside of Birmingham and Huntsville (the lighter shade of red in the very northern part); dark red in the south east, a solid string of blue counties in the “Black Belt” in the south-central part of the state, and lighter red in the other parts of the state. This political alignment sees a 2 to 1 advantage for the Republicans in terms of votes, and even if Jones was to carry the counties containing Huntsville and Mobile (far southwest county jutting into the Gulf of Mexico), at best this might move the Democrats closer to a 3 to 2 disadvantage.

Some might point out that the Folsom race in 2006 could be seen as a more localized race, especially with the Folsom name, and that for many elections after Goldwater’s 1964 win that Alabamians as a whole have almost always split their tickets, voting for Republicans nationally while consistently returning Democrats to the state legislature in Montgomery and routinely electing Democrats to other statewide offices. While the topics of increased polarization and the decline of ticket splitting could both be topics in and of themselves, the evidence is clear. The fact that since 2006 the Democrats have lost control of their last bastion of power – the state legislature, and are now well in the minority in that body, as well as the fact they have only one Congressperson out of 7, and currently hold no other statewide offices or U.S. Senate seats, suggests that the above map is a very accurate portrayal of political realities in Alabama today.

The map to the left captures the 10-year trend between Folsom’s narrow win for the Democrats and Trump’s big win for the Republicans. This corroborates the above account both of Alabama turning increasingly more Republican and that the north, (especially the northwest), and the southeast being big components of this trend.

It is worth noting that several northwestern and northeastern counties which heavily supported the 2016 Republican ticket went for Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, even as he lost both the national and Alabama election by large double digit margins.

If there is any consolation for the Democrats, it is that larger urban centers of Jefferson (Birmingham) in the middle; Madison (Huntsville) in the far north; Mobile in the far southwest and especially Montgomery towards the southeast have either trended more Democratic (albeit incrementally and slowly) or else largely avoided the collapse of Democratic support elsewhere in those interceding years.

WHAT JONES NEEDS TO DO

The great thing about the 2006 Folsom victory map is that it is reflective of a very tight margin, which is likely what the margin would be if Doug Jones should happen to win. Thus, if you even took a handful of small counties out of the blue column on the Folsom map and made them the lightest shade of red, Luther Stranger would have edged him out in claiming the Lieutenant Governorship that year.

This year it is no different. The basic methodology here was to take some basis of Democratic support and try to build in a sufficient swing enough for Doug Jones to win. At this point we are assuming that there is no officially RNC-supported write-in campaign, and that other write-ins would grab an infinitesimal amount of support. This means we would need to run a model where Jones gets exactly 50.00% of the vote at minimum to win.

The basis used, for reasons noted above, would be the 2016 Presidential election map. Hillary Clinton received a total of 34.36% of the Alabama vote. This would be a swing of 15.64% between her vote in 2016 and what Doug Jones would need to reach the magic 50.00%.

No reliable model could make that a uniform 15.65% swing for each county … for some of the Black Belt counties that would actually put them near or over 100% Democratic support, in other counties, likely those in the northwest part of the state, a 15.64% swing would be probably too optimistic. Other counties such as Jefferson could see Democratic support increase, but much like Memphis/Shelby in west Tennessee, the Republican support would have a floor since you have the Republican-leaning suburbs of Germantown (Memphis) and Hoover (Birmingham). Roy Moore’s home county of Gadsden/Etowah did not get a 15.65% swing, although in the recent past, Etowah had actually voted for Bill Clinton. That said, I tried to use some consistent methodology, after roughly two dozen counties had to have some special adjustment. Simply put, for those remaining counties that did not require a special adjustment, if they were already Democrat trending, they got a swing larger than 15.65%. If the county in question trended more towards the Republicans, they got less than a 15.65% swing.

After trying to break down the overall 15.65% swing into what I thought might be a generous margin for Jones, he was still falling short of the 50.00%. I needed to go back to each of the swing layers and keep bumping them up until, after the third try, (never a promising sign) I was able to reach 50%. I went back and forth on Birmingham but figured that an overall vote percentage there of greater than the mid-60s for Jones would be too unrealistic.

The bottom line is, per my model, Jones must meet all of the following on his to-do list, unless there is some unknown, top secret groundswell of phantom old time rural conservative southern Democrats that I am not aware of.

Those tasks are:

• Increase vote share in the Black Belt (quite possible)
• Increase vote share in Montgomery City/County (also quite possible)
• Increase vote share in Birmingham (very possible, up to a point)
• Pick up Alabama’s 5th largest city, Tuscaloosa, and the surrounding county, immediately south west of Birmingham (possible)
• Flip Madison County/Huntsville by a comfortable margin (doable)
• Flip Mobile City & County by a hefty margin (a bit of a stretch)
• Drastically cut the Republican margins of the two suburban Birmingham counties of St. Clair and Shelby well below 60% (much more of a stretch, although Republican support in St. Clair did not increase between 2012 and 2016, and actually declined in Shelby)
• Come within at least one percentage point of taking Talladega County (shaded in white above – more on this below)
• And, btw, not missing any other projection in any other county in the state

No sweat, right? – just as easy as climbing right out of the Stephens Gap cave – just go straight up!

While Jones has, as previously noted, zero margin for error, a win in Talladega County has the added importance of representing the closest thing to a bell-weather county for Alabama. While several political analysts have cautioned against regarding Talledega as a true bell-weather, noting a slight Democratic lean compared to statewide results, the indisputable fact is that the demographics and household income measures in Talladega are roughly in line with that of the state as a whole. Talladega has roughly paralleled statewide Presidential results as far back as 1980; statewide Senatorial results since 1986, although they did buck the statewide result for Governor as recent as 2006 (going Democratic when the state as a whole decisively elected a Republican Governor).

My modelling has shown that Talladega is the one county under a minimal Jones-wins versus minimal Moore-wins scenario that could actually flip (all the other counties could back the same candidate in both models – albeit in varying shades of their party color). More specifically, the model shows that Jones cannot afford to lose Talladega by more than roughly half a percentage point – otherwise he has likely lost the state as a whole.

WHERE DO THE ALABAMA DEMS GO FROM HERE?

The main takeaway with my model and analysis is that the Democrats could, if the planets aligned correctly, have a path to victory in Alabama but old counties that they used to rely on are no longer there. Instead the path, at least in the short to middle term, is very narrow, and outside of the Black Belt depends heavily on the urban and suburban vote. On a map, a blue-shaded Democratic victory in will cover less counties than it did even a decade ago with Folsom Jr.

In some respects, this is the reverse of a dynamic that helped FDR during the New Deal Years. Beginning in 1932, the Republican-leaning, more urban, industrial states of the north and Midwest quickly flipped into the Democratic column; the small-c conservative, southern rural states, (which were not always amenable to New Deal politics) remained solidly Democratic until several decades later. In Alabama, it is the rural, northern and exurban counties that have quickly flipped by large swings to the solid Republican column since the mid-2000s; the urban areas of Democratic support have grown, but much more slowly.

To be sure, I have only looked at the one aspect of this election – the parties’ areas of core support and areas for growth. Many factors will ultimately determine the outcome between late November and mid-December – potential gaffes, further accusations, new scandals, intra-partisan warfare, an official write-in campaign, etc. This is not to say that dynamics couldn’t change to where Doug Jones could win by more than 50%. This is to simply point out that given the strong partisan leanings of the Yellowhammer state, that Jones has much more of an uphill battle than any Republican candidate in a state which is often the reddest on a national map of all states east of the Mississippi.

So, if this election continues to be neck-and-neck in the polls and people continue to see the allegations of Roy Moore front and center, Jones will definitely have one of the better showings by Democrats in this state, but barring the unexpected, the Alabama political climate is so entrenched in Republican politics that Jones will need every vote he can get.

E. Bucholz 11/25/17