The Anti-Obama Democrats
Just how many Democratic primary voters are voting against President Obama in the 2012 primary season? About 15 percent.
An image provided by Keith R. Judd shows the federal prisoner Keith Russell Judd, 49, at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Beaumont, Texas. (AP Photo/ The Beaumont Enterprise courtesy of Keith R. Judd)
A Fix review of the 16 states in which voters have been given an alternative to Obama on the Democratic primary ballot — whether it be an actual candidate, a write-in, or simply “uncommitted” — shows that Obama is averaging 84.6 percent of the vote.
In the five states where there was an actual named opponent , though, Obama’s share of the vote is considerably lower: 72.7 percent.
The phenomenon, as you might guess, is much more pronounced in the South and Appalachia, where Obama is averaging 74 percent of the vote in the six states that have offered an Obama alternative so far.
In the other 10 states, Obama is averaging a much higher number: 91 percent.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a potential problem going forward.
Obama, as we’ve noted before, has performed especially poorly in West Virginia and Oklahoma, where he took less than 60 percent of the vote. (His top opponent in West Virginia was a federal inmate in Texas, while in Oklahoma it was an anti-abortion rights activist). Obama also took just 77 percent in Louisiana, where several other candidates split up the vote.