Beat the Pollsters (NC: Obama wins 54% to 46%, IN: Clinton wins 53% to 47%)

Given that Democratic primary has been more about demographics than policy, I'm going to use past exit polls and demographic data to predict what will happen tomorrow. I suspect that my simple analysis could easily beat the large polling companies.


Let's start with North Carolina:

NC is 22% African American. In the rest of the south, the percentage of the Democratic electorate that is African American tends to be between 135%-196% greater than their overall share of the population. The average is 166%. If the trend holds I would suspect African-Americans will make up 36.5% of the electorate tomorrow.

StateAA% of PopulationAA% of ElectoratePercent Increase
Georgia3051170%
Virginia2030150%
Louisiana3248150%
Alabama2651196%
Mississippi3750135%
Tennessee1729171%
South Carolina2955190%

It has been reported that 40% of all early voting has been by African American. I read that the Obama campaign has made early voting a large part of their campaign efforts so I suspect the overall AA percentage of the Democratic electorate will be slightly less than 40%.

North Carolina is better educated and wealthier than Mississippi and Alabama but slightly less educated and poorer than Georgia. Obama got 26% of the white vote in Mississippi and Alabama but received 43% of the white vote in Georgia. Given the current tone of the campaign and the election trends, I suspect Obama should receive about 34% of the white vote in North Carolina. So here is my breakdown of how North Carolina will look tomorrow:

VoteOverallClintonObama
Africian American36%10%90%
White (and Others)63%66%34%
Overall100%46%54%

Headline: Obama Wins 54% to 46%

Next let's look at Indiana:

Indiana should be very similar to Pennsylvania and Ohio, which Clinton won by 10 points. All three are rust belt states and in all three Hillary Clinton has been endorsed by the most prominent statewide Democratic office holder.

Indiana is less educated than Ohio and Pennsylvania and has few African Americans. This is good for Hillary Clinton. The only positive demographic figure for Obama is that Indiana has fewer citizens over 65. I'm assuming these slight differences will balance out. Given all this, Hillary Clinton should win Indiana by about 10 points.

The wild card element is how much the Chicago's media market overlap into Northern Indiana should help Obama. I think the effect will be noticeable but not game changing. While Indianans should as a result "know" Obama better, Obama should be very recognizable figure to most voters after this long primary battle. I would be surprised if the proximity factor helped Obama pick up more than an extra 2-4% of the vote.

Headline: Clinton Wins Indiana 53% to 47%

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