Hillary Probably Won’t Expand The 2016 Map

Earlier this week, Noah Rothman wrote over at Hot Air that Team Hillary thinks they can net 386 electoral votes if she decided to run in 2016. The folks that could become Clinton’s campaign staff think it’s possible since Clinton can reach the voters Democrats have struggle with in past election cycles: working class whites.

Their targets: Arizona, Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Georgia

White working class appeal and demographics trending toward the Democrats are the reasons why Hillary’s potential campaign team is eyeing these states. Yet, before conservatives start hyperventilating, Harry Enten over at FiveThirtyEight said flipping these states is highly unlikely. For starters, voter registration is comfortably Republican–and these voters flocking toward the GOP aren’t just anti-Obama; they’re anti-Democrat:

If anything, the first three states have become less sympathetic to Democrats in recent years. And there’s no evidence that Clinton is the exception. Georgia and Arizona have become more diverse, but they’ve yet to become more Democratic. [...]
In all five states, the Republican lead in party identification is at least 5 percentage points greater in the past two years than it was nationwide. It’s not just that voters in these states dislike Obama. They dislike Democrats.

In the first “bucket” Clinton targets — Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri — voters were about as Democratic-leaning as the nation in 2009. Since then, however, voters there have shifted away from the Democratic brand. The Republican lead in party identification among Arkansans, Hoosiers and Missourians is now about 10 percentage points greater than it is nationwide.

Republicans hold more than 60 percent of the seats in both houses of the state legislatures in these states. And the GOP majorities in all three states increased after the 2014 elections. So, it’s not like Clinton can localize these races. These states are solidly Republican from the top down.

Arizona and Georgia have long been listed by Democrats as potential pickup opportunities because of each state’s growing racial diversity. And it’s possible they’ll become presidential battlegrounds. But there isn’t any sign that will happen in the next two years.