Primaries Are Not General Elections

Say it with me:

"Primaries Are Not General Elections"

Just because Candidate A wins or loses a State Primary, it does not follow that the same candidate will win/lose the same state in the general election. This is such a simple political prescription, I'm surprised we don't all follow it more closely. Yet questions of this sort are raised on DU quite often.

Consider the Democratic primaries of 1984. Mondale won Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. Did he win those in the GE?

In case you don't remember, the 1984 GE was a BLOWOUT for Reagan. All Mondale won was Minnesota. Oh, and BTW, Reagan won Minnesota in the Republican primary that year (well...not fair. Reagan won EVERYTHINg in the Republican primary, because he ran virtually unopposed :) ) Remember: Losing/winning in one venue does not guarantee similar results over in any other venue.

Look also at 1992. In the primary, Clinton won Texas, and lost Colorado. In the General election, Clinton LOST Texas, and WON Colorado. A clean reversal!

The short story here is that it is useless asking "What will (Insert Candidate A Here) do NOW after losing the (Insert State X Here) Primary?"

Apples and oranges, my friends. No comparisons at all.

Are you awful with money? Then you might have a shot.

Primaries are NOT General elections and we are now in General Election mode, even if there are still primary contests to be decided

based on the "How can so-and-so win if.." threads

Senator Clinton can win some states she lost during the primary and Senator Obama can win states he lost in the primary.

It also helps with the fact that all voting in the general is secret ballot.

They have different styles, and completely different messages. Clinton on the ticket would be like one horn off key in a John Philip Sousa duet.

bring different things to the table.

Its an off message attempt to make ammends for winning, as if that was even required.

Not needed, not helpful, not unifying.

for everything the Republicans have done for her.

Makes sense to me. Plus it brings her voters who are not really happy with the way the party is right now. Of course that may change but since few on here seems to give a shit about giving her supporters grieving time...

It's not even as though she had "blow outs" in the big states...those states that usually go blue anyway. Besides, lots of people are having 'buyers remorse' more and more as this primary season drags on.

But winning a primary does not even guarantee greater strength in the general election relative to the primary runner-up. Your post focused on winning or losing a primary translating into winning or losing a state in the general election, but that gets muddled up by the strength of the parties in different states. There are many states that will go red no matter what in the general election, and others that will definitely go blue, so the nominee is going to win or lose many states regardless of which primaries they won. I would take it a step further and focus on relative strength in the general election. Just because candidate A beat candidate B in the primary, it does not follow that candidate A would do better than candidate B would in the general election of that state. The main reasons for this are crossover voting and transference. Crossover vote is not fully measured in the primaries, especially closed primaries, so a candidate that lost a primary might gain support relative to the winner by gaining more votes from independents or the other party. Transference is the likelihood of each candidates supporters to back the other candidate in the general. If the supporters of the winning candidate of the primary all have the runner-up as their second choice, but the supporters of the runner-up all have the opposing party's nominee as their second choice, the runner-up will be a stronger general election candidate in that state. Generally speaking I would say the crossover effect benefits Obama and the transference effect will benefit Clinton, though that might vary by state. Obama has much stronger support from independents and Republicans relative to Clinton, and this will mean in some states he lost the primary he will actually be stronger than her. Obama supporters that do not transfer to Clinton seem to have a tendency to stay home instead of backing McCain, while Clinton supporters that do not transfer to Obama tend more towards backing McCain. This gives Clinton more strength in this area as it is better to lose a supporter that does not vote instead of losing one that votes for the opponent.

It is true that not a lot of stock can be put on who wins one primary or another. Sometimes favorite sons win their states. Sometimes the political machinery can win states. Sometimes an important issue can win a state. But, when it comes down to a choice between the two different Parties, rather than a choice between the One Party, then it becomes a different story altogether.

Okay...

Primaries Are Not General Elections!