Is McCain the Most Electable Republican Against Hillary?

By Adam C

Kudos to DaveG over at Race42008 for doing this kind of intensive data collection and analysis on who polls the best state-by-state against Hillary. His overall finding to the above question is yes:

The result: while Hillary wins general election matchups against all the Republicans, only McCain comes out of the gate basically even with Hillary in the electoral vote count. That’s because McCain is the only candidate who basically keeps the red/blue template from 2004 intact. According to my formula, if the election were held today, McCain would win all of the red states from 2004 minus three: Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas. Hillary, meanwhile, would win all of the 2004 blue states except for Oregon. That gives Hillary 270 electoral votes to McCain’s 268. That means that all McCain has to do is win Kentucky, which is unlikely to ultimately vote for Hillary, or snag Wisconsin (McCain – 2), or Minnesota (McCain – 3), or Pennsylvania (McCain – 2), or McCain-friendly New Hampshire. If any single one of those states flip, McCain is President of the United States.

Two of the underlying findings that lead to this finding are 1) "McCain ups GOP numbers in the Great Lakes region, allowing Republicans to hold Ohio and Iowa and put Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania in play. Rudy, on the other hand, lacks McCain’s regional and temperamental appeal to the West and Midwest." and 2) "McCain wins the Right while simultaneously taking 50% of Independents and 50% of moderates" outpolling other Rs in those key swing groups in the internals of a KS poll (as one example).

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Is McCain the Most Electable Republican Against Hillary?
 
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