He Never Had a Chance

I wanted to quickly highlight some data which caught my eye. Boy were we wrong to ever think Ronnie Musgrove had a shot in his contest against Roger Wicker. The exit polling data shows us that Musgrove, who was trounced by 55-45 on Tuesday, never had a chance.

Why? Look no further than who voted:

62% white
33% black

That's your ball game right there. In all of our analysis, we said that Musgrove needed around 91% or more of the black vote, and that black turnout had to exceed 37% (not to mention the white vote factor). All of R2K's polling presumed that black turnout would be 37% exactly.

In 2004, black turnout in Mississippi was 34%, so it actually dropped this year. Does that mean that less blacks voted? Not at all. In 2004, if CNN's exit data is accurate, around 391,700 blacks voted, and this year, that number rose to a little over 398,000. What happened was that even more whites turned out in Mississippi. Whether this was unique to the state or the region, I am not sure, but I am going to look at it later.

Anyway, how did the vote break down?

Whites
Wicker 82%
Musgrove 18%

Blacks
Wicker 8%
Musgrove 92%

That, it a nutshell, is all you need to know. Musgrove did end up with around what he needed of the black vote to win, but that is assuming that black turnout was at about 38%, and not 33%; and it also assumes he would have gotten around a quarter of the white vote.

Musgrove, who was polling at around a quarter of the white vote up through November ended up with 18%. With that number, he could have gotten 100% of blacks and 100% of Hispanic voters (who made up about 4% of voters), and he still would have lost. He never had a chance.

Musgrove's failure to even be competitive demonstrates the near-impossible climb a Democrat has facing him to win a Senate seat in Mississippi. The voting in the state is just so polarized along political and racial lines that Democrats don't stand a chance with white voters. In the end, Barack Obama astonishingly did not increase black turnout relative to the overall turnout number, as he mobilized even more whites to the polls to vote Republican. So, in the end Obama's presence on the ballot may have cost Musgrove. Still, it is unlikely he could have made up enough ground to win in another year. I feel foolish for having felt Musgrove had a chance, but I and the pollsters simply underestimated Obama's presence on the ballot with conservative whites. My apologies for leading anyone astray with my wrong analysis of this race.

This is one state where Democratic prospects to win a Senate seat are basically nil. Maybe a few years down the line we will see if Travis Childers has any shot once Thad Cochran retires in 2014. I think he would be a better statewide candidate than Musgrove (who has too much baggage), but whether he can win statewide is another story entirely.