What's the Matter with Mississippi?

That’s the question many commentators were asking last week, when Gallup released their 2010 averages of Obama’s presidential approval ratings, broken down by state. Nate Silver over at Five Thirty Eight found that President Obama’s approval rating has only increased (when compared to his 2008 vote share) in states that voted for McCain. Most surprisingly, Mississippi was at the top of this list. Obama’s 2010 approval rating is more than 4 points higher than the votes he received there in 2008, 47.1 percent to 43 percent.

Continuing with this analysis, last year New Hampshire gave Obama the lowest approval rating of any state that voted for him in 2008 (41.3 percent) and experienced the second largest drop from Obama’s 2008 vote totals (Vermont experienced the largest drop). Conversely, Mississippi gave Obama the highest approval of all the states that voted for McCain in 2008. The article is summarily titled “Is Mississippi the new New Hampshire?”

Yet, two days later, Gallup released another set of polling numbers, examining the average number of self-identified conservatives, moderates, and liberals in each state in 2010. Mississippi is again at the top of the list, this time for being home to the highest percent of conservatives (50.5 percent). Conservatives have a numbers advantage over liberals in all fifty states, ranging from a 36.7 point gap in Mississippi to a 0.2 point gap in Vermont. So if over 50 percent of Mississippians identify as conservative, and over 47 percent approve of Obama, what’s the matter with Mississippi?

Examining the ideological spectrum nationally, Pew found 38 percent of people identify as conservative or very conservative, 33 percent as moderate, and 24 percent as liberal or very liberal in August and September of 2010. Despite the common perception that identifying as conservative equates to being or voting Republican, this is not an absolute. Though only 6 percent of Republicans identify themselves as liberal or very liberal, 24 percent of Democrats identify as conservative or very conservative nationally according to the same Pew poll. Furthermore, moderates are more likely to identify as a Democrat over a Republican by a 3 to 2 ratio (33 to 22 percent). So, despite conservatives boasting pluralities in every state, those pluralities do not translate to a unified Republican voting bloc across the map. Even with his increased popularity in the state, Obama shouldn’t be pegging his reelection hopes on Mississippi any time soon.