Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Hillary’s Electability & Governors

Much of the growing sense of inevitability about Hillary Clinton’s bid for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination revolves around the issue of electability. Polls show her running well these days against prospective Republican opponents, which she buttresses with references to the breadth of her own landslide Senate reelection victory last fall in New York.

But that race is a story with two sides. There is no doubt that a case for “Hillary the Vote Getter” can be made with cold, hard facts. She was reelected in 2006 with 67 percent of the vote, 12 percentage points better than her first run in 2000. She won 58 of the Empire State’s 62 counties (after carrying only 15 six years earlier). And she swept every region of the state, most notably the vast Republican-oriented upstate sector, by comfortable margins. The latter is a clear demonstration, her proponents say, of her ability to make inroads in “Red America” on a wider scale in 2008. MORE