Feature: Home state is where the heart is
John McCain must be worried. With all the polls pointing to an Obama win and across the board Republican wipe-out on Tuesday, he would at least wish for his home state of Arizona to give him a vote of confidence, even if the swing states do not. But, according to the latest polls, Arizona is up for grabs. Obama has been running adverts in the state in the last few days, and the latest average poll from Real Clear Politics gives McCain a lead of just 3.5 per cent, low enough to give it toss-up status.
For a presidential candidate, winning their home state is not just about a moral victory and demonstrating local support, it can make the difference between the White House and the dog house.
The weeks of wrangling in Florida during the 2000 election would have been unnecessary had Al Gore won his home state of Tennessee. Its 11 electoral votes would have made the vice-president the president and made the recounts and hanging chads irrelevant. In this context, it’s hard to feel too much sympathy for Gore. If you can’t win the support of your own people, how can you spread the message across the country?
In the twentieth century, only two presidents won election without carrying their home state. Despite hailing from California, Republican Richard Nixon was a resident of New York when he ran for president in 1968. He won the election by less than one per cent of the popular vote, but had a decent lead in the Electoral College without New York’s 43 electoral votes, which were offset by winning California’s 40.
In 1916 Democrat Woodrow Wilson was re-elected despite losing his home state of New Jersey, scraping a slim majority in the Electoral College.
In the main, losing candidates usually manage to hang on to their home states. Democrats defeated in the Republican landslides of 1980, 84 and 88 all managed to win at home, even if they lost almost everywhere else. Gore was the first presidential nominee to lose his home state since South Dakota Senator George McGovern was thrashed by Nixon’s re-election machine in 1972.
So to lose his home state would more than likely mean that Senator McCain would lose the election – which the national and swing state polls suggest. It would also be a huge embarrassment if he can’t convince the Arizonans he has represented in Congress for 26 years that he’s the best man to be president. Whatever McCain has faced in his long military and political careers, he probably never expected this.
Nick Cooper
Nick Cooper is a freelance journalist based in London.
