9. Elastic states versus inelastic states: The cases of New Hampshire and Pennsylvania
We have ordered our Toss-up and Leans states in Table 3. You may notice that Pennsylvania, which we rate as Leans Democratic, was not as Democratic as some of our Toss-up states and could credibly be paired with the Midwest path to victory discussion for the GOP in point five. Meanwhile, New Hampshire, a Toss-up, was actually slightly more Democratic than Pennsylvania in 2012: Obama won 51.98% in the former and 51.96% in the latter.
So what gives? Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight examined the concept of electorate elasticity prior to the 2012 election. New Hampshire has one of the most elastic electorates according to his analysis, and the 2012 exit poll data helps us see why. The Granite State electorate had easily the largest percentage of self-identified independents (or something else) of all the battleground states, 43%. While most independent identifiers are closet partisans, the exit poll data suggest that, compared to other battlegrounds, New Hampshire may really have a larger block of voters who are potentially persuadable.
Another reason for this is that most of the Granite State electorate is white. Although white voters backed Romney by a 20-point margin in 2012 nationally, this paled in comparison to nonwhite voters, who supported Obama at a more-than-80% clip. So New Hampshire’s relative absence of diversity means that it lacks a large group of nonwhite voters who can be viewed as relatively reliable Democratic votes, particularly African Americans.
This is a key difference with Pennsylvania. Of our 10 battleground states, the Keystone State had the largest percentage of Democratic self-identifiers in 2012, in part because its electorate was 13% black and 21% nonwhite as a whole. At the same time, Pennsylvania also had the largest percentage of Republican self-identifiers, meaning that the state had by far the lowest percentage of independent identifiers in these states, 20%. The next-closest? North Carolina with 29%. These figures show why the Pennsylvania electorate is actually relatively inelastic because there are fewer potential swing voters and more base voters who will support their side in most every circumstance.
One other major difference between small New Hampshire and big Pennsylvania: In all likelihood, the Democratic nominee is going to get at least a 400,000 vote-edge out of Philadelphia County, and that might be low (Obama got close to a 500,000-vote lead there in 2012). It’s hard for Republicans to make that up in the rest of the state.
Thus, despite New Hampshire and Pennsylvania having nearly identical election results in 2012, the Granite State is a Toss-up because its electorate is among the most elastic, making it less predictable, whereas the Keystone State is Leans Democratic because its inelastic electorate gives Democrats a high floor.
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