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Who has the edge with Indiana’s new voters: Obama or Clinton?

Dante Chinni

Posted: 05.05.2008 / 10:40 AM EDT

As the Democratic primary battle has moved from state to state, one thing has stayed constant: Voter registration has climbed in the weeks before election day. And Indiana follows the pattern.

Since Jan. 1, the number of voters in the Hoosier State has increased by 138,000. Is that enough to change the results of the vote on Tuesday? That depends on how close the final tally is.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has about a five-point edge over Barack Obama, according to RealClearPolitics.com’s average of Indiana polls. And some polls show the race nearly even.

While North Carolina also holds its contest Tuesday, Indiana is seen as the big battleground.

The Hoosier State’s open primary means that voters don’t have to declare party affiliation to cast a ballot. This makes it especially difficult to discern how those new voter numbers could affect the race. But filtering the new registrants though Patchwork Nation’s community types provides some clues.

The biggest jumps in registration by percentage – comparing new registrants with the total number of voters in 2004 – have occurred in two community types that have been strongholds for Senator Obama during the primaries, “Industrial Metropolis” counties and “Campus and Careers” counties.

Together those two community types have increased their rolls by more than 73,000 voters, more than half the total of new voters in the state since the beginning of the year.

Four of the five counties with the biggest increases in registrations seem likely to tilt toward Obama: Marion County (home of Indianapolis) has 23,770 new voters, Lake County (home of Gary and neighbor of Obama’s home state of Illinois) has 12,099 new voters, St. Joseph County (home of South Bend) has 7,407 new voters and Monroe (home of Bloomington and Indiana University) has 6,249 new voters.

But those numbers aren’t as clear-cut as they might appear.

First, even though those counties may prove to be Obama country and Obama has demonstrated an ability to bring in new voters, it’s unclear how strongly those places will go for Obama or how many of those new voters will be voting for a Democrat in the state’s open primary.

Second, Indiana has a complicated political landscape. Every state has its subcultures, but in Indiana, which has few densely populated areas, the subcultures are more likely to show up in counties.

St. Joseph County, for instance, contains South Bend, which is why it’s been classified as an “Industrial Metropolis.” But even though South Bend is the county’s biggest burg, it holds less than half the county’s population. In 2004, the county went for George W. Bush in the general election – which is rare for an “Industrial Metropolis,” and shows its conservative leanings. During the primaries, Senator Clinton has largely carried the counties with more conservative voting records.

Other good prospects for Clinton come from voter-registration increases in “Emptying Nest” counties, where the population is a bit older than US counties on average. She has fared well in these communities throughout the primary season. In Indiana, “Emptying Nests” have added more than 23,000 new voters since Jan. 1.

But that count is murky, too. The single biggest bump in “Emptying Nest” counties came from Allen County, where more than 9,000 residents have registered to vote. Allen County is not the typical “Emptying Nest” because it contains the big city Fort Wayne, where more than 17 percent of the population is African-American – a key constituency for Obama. So the question is: Are these new voters in Allen County coming from the county at large or Fort Wayne specifically?

The other community type in Indiana that figures to be key is the “Monied ’Burbs,” which represent the second-biggest community type in the state – after “Industrial Metropolis.” Across the US, affluent suburbs have tended to split between Clinton and Obama.

In Indiana, these 20 counties – nine of them surrounding Indianapolis – have added about 20,000 voters since Jan. 1.

The majority of these “Monied ’Burbs” counties went heavily (more than 60 percent) for Mr. Bush in 2004. Since Clinton has performed better than Obama in more conservative counties during the primary season, those new registrants in “Monied ’Burbs” will probably be crucial if the race winds up being very close.