Her edge

Hillary’s Path to Victory?

This time, being older, white and a woman might give her an edge.

By JILL LAWRENCE

Nevermind the email server, Benghazi, Elizabeth Warren and all the other noise. The news Friday that Hillary Clinton has rented a campaign office in Brooklyn came on the heels of fresh polls last week that underscored a political truth: The former first lady, senator and secretary of state, who by all indications is on the brink of becoming an official presidential contender, remains the person to beat—both for the Democratic nomination and for the presidency itself.

Even as Clinton has tried to lay low and plan a campaign rollout, she has become embroiled in fresh controversies involving “secret emails,” foreign donations to the family’s foundation, apparent “special favors” from a federal official for her brother, Tony Rodham, and close friend Terry McAuliffe, and now—with the revelation that she wiped her personal email server clean—the prospect of congressional Republicans filing a lawsuit that could dog her throughout a White House bid. GOP investigators have even asked her to testify in private on Capitol Hill by May 1, nobody's idea of an ideal event for a launch season.

And there are factors beyond her control that could hurt her chances. It’s rare, for example, for a political party to win a third consecutive term and, for any nominee, it would be difficult to match President Barack Obama’s unique ability to galvanize minority voters. Yet for all her challenges, self-made and otherwise, Clinton has demographic advantages that could swing decisive battleground states her way. She is not young; she is not black; and she’s not a guy. All of which gives her an edge in her quest to succeed the young, black guy now occupying the Oval Office.

For reasons that are not pretty, nominating Clinton could stanch the flow of white seniors and white working-class voters, particularly men, away from the Democratic Party. “She’s white,” one national Democratic strategist says simply. “That’s going to make it easier for her in some places. The reality is race is still an issue in our society. We certainly see that in the way people vote.” Another party operative, a veteran of several presidential campaigns, was even more emphatic: “The race thing cannot be overstated. It’s like a shark. It’s so close to the surface in some places that you can see its fin.”

But there are also positive reasons for why Clinton may rally voters to the polls. Women of all ages and races who are electrified by the prospect of a female president would be an army for Clinton, much as black and youth voters were for Obama. And she’s not going to squander that opportunity this time around. From the moment her abbreviated biography hit Twitter (wife, mom, women’s advocate, hair icon, political pioneer) to 2015 schedule heavy with events focused on women, Clinton is already embracing her slice of history in a way that she never did in the 2008 race. Renee James, the president of Intel Corp., even introduced her at a recent women’s technology conference as “a modern-day suffragette.”

What does all of this mean for the 2016 electoral map? There would be some fundamentals working in Clinton’s favor if, as expected, she seeks and wins the Democratic nomination. One is that 18 states and the District of Columbia have gone for Democrats in every presidential election since 1992, for a total of 242 electoral votes—only 28 shy of the required 270. By contrast, only 13 states have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1992, and they amount to only 102 electoral votes. So Democrats have many more paths to 270.

The map for Clinton, as with any Democrat, starts with D.C. and the 18 solidly blue states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Next come the battlegrounds: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

In the 2012 presidential contest, the three most closely contested states were Florida and Ohio, which Obama won, and North Carolina, which Mitt Romney won. Together the three amount to 62 electoral votes. So Obama—who finished with 332 electoral votes—could have lost all three of those states and still have made it to 270. If Clinton held the 18 states that have voted Democratic since 1992, winning Florida and its 29 electoral votes would by itself seal a victory.

The third tier of the electoral map is aspirational, places where Obama and John Kerry, the 2004 nominee, competed or considered competing. That adds states trending away from Democrats, like Missouri and Montana, as well as those trending toward them, such as Georgia and Arizona. They would come into play as long shots worth pursuing if Clinton were confident she had already locked up 270 votes in other, less risky states.

Then there are the fantasies. Clinton ran in 2008 as the champion of “everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up” and “everyone who works hard and never gives up” and trounced Obama in primary states like West Virginia and Kentucky. But that was never going to translate into general-election victories, then or now. Nor do analysts like her chances in Arkansas, where she was first lady and practiced law for many years, or Indiana, which Obama won in 2008. “A wild card … just a total out-of-the-blue thing” unlikely to recur, political demographer William Frey says of Obama’s Indiana win.