There are 28 Democratic governors in the country, and about half of them have made presidential endorsements. In a couple of days, one of the more sought-after governors is going to back Barack Obama.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) will deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union on Monday.
And then Tuesday or Wednesday, she plans to endorse Barack Obama, numerous Democratic sources said.
The sources said that Sebelius decided some time ago that Obama was her candidate but decided to wait until after the State of the Union.
Sebelius’ profile is clearly on the rise, as evidenced by the SOTU response, and there’s been plenty of speculation about the Kansas governor being a strong candidate for the eventual nominee’s VP short-lists.
But in the broader context, there’s been some discussion about what the Sebelius endorsement signals. As Matt Yglesias noted, the announcement reinforces “the point that the clear sentiment among Democratic elected officials in the red areas is that a Nominee Obama or a President Obama would do more to expand the Democratic Party’s geographical reach.”
That seems true. In fact, if I were to guess without looking, I’d assume that most of Obama’s supporters are coming from red states, where Dems may be worried about the down-ballot consequences of a Clinton nomination.
But I took a closer look, and at least for now, Obama’s red-state edge is modest.
As of today, Clinton has picked up 10 gubernatorial endorsements, more than the rest of the Democratic field combined. Two of the 10 — Arkansas’ Mike Beebe and Ohio’s Ted Strickland — come from states Bush won in 2004.
Obama, once we include Sebelius in the mix, has six gubernatorial endorsements, three from states Bush won in 2004 — Kansas’ Sebelius, Virginia’s Tim Kaine, and Arizona’s Janet Napolitano.
This may continue to break Obama’s way or it may not, but as of today, three red-state governors to two isn’t a big margin.
And what about senators? Obama’s edge is a little more impressive here. HRC has 11 endorsements from Democratic senators, two from red states — Indiana’s Evan Bayh and Florida’s Bill Nelson. As of this afternoon, Obama will have eight Senate endorsements, four from red states — North Dakota’s Kent Conrad, South Dakota’s Tim Johnson, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, and Nebraska’s Ben Nelson.
This is interesting (at least to me), but if there’s a marked trend of red-state Dems moving away from Clinton, it’s subtle, at best. Perhaps it’ll be more apparent in the coming weeks, but we’re not there yet.
What’s arguably more important, though, is the fact that so many governors and senators are backing Obama at all. I suspected early on that Clinton would get nearly all of the establishment support, if for no other reason, because no one in the establishment would want to challenge the Clinton Machine. But as of now, Obama has almost reached parity with HRC in gubernatorial and senatorial endorsements, punctuated by today’s announcement from Ted Kennedy.
Stay tuned.