A McCain/Hillary/Bloomberg race in 2008

What's interesting about the 2008 general election is that despite Obama's blowout in the popular vote, the Electoral College was only a landslide for Obama due to close victories in a few states. Despite the perceived weakness of the Sarah Palin VP choice on the part of McCain, and in spite of the financial crisis and Bush's unpopularity, McCain still would have kept the race close had he closed the gap 1 percentage point in Indiana and North Carolina, and 3 percentage points in Florida.

So what happens if, instead of Obama narrowly besting Hillary for the Democratic nod, Hillary ekes out a win and takes the nomination, causing Bloomberg to run as a third party candidate to pick up the disaffected white collar voters and young liberals who were a major part of Obama's base?

It seems likely that North Carolina, which went for Obama by 1 point due to Obama's unprecedented ability to bring to the polls new African-American voters, would have stayed in the GOP column that year with Hillary leading the Democratic ticket. Indiana also was part of Team Obama's strategy of expanding the map, while Hillary would have gone for a straight "blue state" strategy, similar to Kerry in 2004, and would not have attempted to win a state as red as Indiana. So put both of those states back in the McCain column.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg ends up winning 5 or maybe even 10 percent of the popular vote, but 90 percent of the Bloomberg vote comes from a few states: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia (due to Northern Virginia), Florida (due to ex-NYers in Southern Florida), and California. Despite Bloomberg's strength in many of these states, McCain's OTL losses in most of these states makes it unlikely that he would very many of them even with Bloomberg on the ballot in ATL. For example, New York went for the Democrat by 26 points in 2008 in OTL. A Bloomberg run in ATL would still fail to give McCain the state --- instead, Hillary would probably win New York by 10 or so, with Bloomberg taking 15-20 points in the state.

The only states that Bloomberg might actually flip to McCain as a spoiler in ATL are Florida and Virginia. Florida is the lowest hanging fruit here due to the fact that in OTL, McCain only lost it by 3 points. Put Hillary on the Democratic ticket instead of Obama and the African-American vote share goes down. Put Bloomberg in the race as a third party candidate to appeal to ex-NYers in Florida and McCain probably holds the state for the GOP.

Virginia is a tougher state to predict due to a number of factors. 2008 was the first year in which Virginia voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1964. It was also the first presidential year that Virginia began to drift blue-ward due to the presence of white collar white voters in the Northern part of the state and the continued realignment of those voters away from the Republicans. If NOVA goes for Bloomberg heavily enough, McCain could take the state in ATL. But still, in OTL, McCain lost Virginia by 6 points, and that's a lot of ground to make up just because Bloomberg is stealing votes like a bandit from Hillary in major coastal urban centers.

Even if McCain holds all of North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, and Virginia in this race, again, due to a more conservative electoral strategy by Hillary, fewer new African-American voters, and Bloomberg acting as a spoiler in specific population centers, Hillary still wins the Electoral College with 299 electoral votes to McCain's 239. In order for McCain to win outright, he'd have to win states like Ohio, where Bloomberg will be a non-factor due to being a poor fit for the state's voters, and states like Colorado and Nevada, which went for the Democrats by near double digits in OTL 2008 and, while they may have been closer in an ATL, would not have gone for McCain that year. Moreover, unlike in OTL 2016, Hillary was not going to lose the Rust Belt in ATL 2008 due to the fact that McCain was not a natural fit for the Rust Belt like Trump.

In sum, it's probable that Democrats would have still won the White House in 2008 even with a weaker presidential nominee (Hillary) and a spoiler for left-leaning centrists (Bloomberg). The year 2008 was just a Democratic year, and the Republicans lacked a candidate who could put together enough states to win even without the Obama hype.
 
What's interesting about the 2008 general election is that despite Obama's blowout in the popular vote, the Electoral College was only a landslide for Obama due to close victories in a few states. Despite the perceived weakness of the Sarah Palin VP choice on the part of McCain, and in spite of the financial crisis and Bush's unpopularity, McCain still would have kept the race close had he closed the gap 1 percentage point in Indiana and North Carolina, and 3 percentage points in Florida.

A different way to look at it is this, though: Although Obama won the popular vote by 7.3 percent, he would still have won in the Electoral College if he had won only those states where he won by 8.95% or more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 To win, McCain would have to have won some states where he lost pretty big on OTL.

It is tempting to think that HRC would have done much worse than Obama because of the experience of 2016--but 2008 was a very different year. HRC's strength in the Democratic primaries in 2008 was greatest in precisely the working-class white areas where she did so poorly eight years later. I think that in a two-way general election race, she would have won fairly easily in 2008. And I don't see any reason Bloomberg would be more likely to run against her than he was against Obama. She was liberal enough on social issues for him, and not particularly left-wing on economic issues. And in any event, Bloomberg announced his non-candidacy long before it was clear that Obama would win the nomination: http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/28/bloomberg_wont_run_for_president/
 
If you want a 2008 third-party candidate who'd fare well with young liberals, get Mike Gravel the Libertarian Party's nomination. Nader supported him in the Democratic primary historically (along with Kucinich) so maybe Nader doesn't run and supports Gravel here. Gravel has similar levels of cranky old man vibes that Paul and Sanders have.

Gravel-Barr or Gravel-Gray as the Libertarian Party ticket gets 1-2% most likely. Maybe the Progressive left and the anti-war right opt to rally around it and it does Nader 2000 levels of success.
 
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A different way to look at it is this, though: Although Obama won the popular vote by 7.3 percent, he would still have won in the Electoral College if he had won only those states where he won by 8.95% or more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 To win, McCain would have to have won some states where he lost pretty big on OTL.

It is tempting to think that HRC would have done much worse than Obama because of the experience of 2016--but 2008 was a very different year. HRC's strength in the Democratic primaries in 2008 was greatest in precisely the working-class white areas where she did so poorly eight years later. I think that in a two-way general election race, she would have won fairly easily in 2008. And I don't see any reason Bloomberg would be more likely to run against her than he was against Obama. She was liberal enough on social issues for him, and not particularly left-wing on economic issues. And in any event, Bloomberg announced his non-candidacy long before it was clear that Obama would win the nomination: http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/28/bloomberg_wont_run_for_president/

There's also the fact that even if Hilary doesn't flip North Carolina, her popularity with working class whites would balance the loss of the black vote to a degree. Virginia is still quite a possible D win as is Indiana. Missouri would be in play and wasn't she polling very well in Arkansas if we want a blowout win?
 
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Bloomberg has no constituency in this line-up, at all. You have two candidates seen on the “centrist” side of their parties and a third-way centrist billionaire in a financial crisis.
 
I've heard that Bloomberg's internal polls had him at 10-12% in a McCain v Hillary race.

His likely running mate was going to be David Boren of Okhaloma.

Bloomberg dropping a billion of his own money on the race would be quite the site though.


Clinton-Bayh
McCain-Lieberman
Bloomberg-Boren

They're all so similar. Granted, 1992 involved three centrist candidates too but that didn't stop Perot from running as a kind of change candidate.
 
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