Following up on my post on where Obama is winning and losing, here are some updated graphs breaking down his support at the state level.

First, here’s a plot of a flexible polynomial fitted to state two-candidate vote totals by date — you can see the upward trajectory in Obama’s support levels, though the line weights each point equally:

In a linear regression, the strongest predictors of Obama’s overall support are whether it’s a caucus (+), Democratic presidential vote (-), and black population (+). Here’s the plot of presidential vote, which indicates that Obama does worse in heavily Democratic states (the fitted line excludes the outlier of Washington, DC):

By contrast, Obama does better in states with larger numbers of African Americans, though the trend is concentrated among primary states (the linear fit is only for those states):

State education levels (specifically, the proportion of the population with a college degree) are also somewhat positively correlated with Obama support:

Finally, the strongest predictor of Obama’s white support is the number of Southern Baptists in the state (-), which has been suggested as a measurable proxy for “Southernness”:

Out of sample predictions from a model like this are likely to be highly inaccurate, but for what little it’s worth, a regression of Obama support on black population, Hispanic population, state population (logged), 2004 Democratic presidential vote, a dummy variable for whether the state has a caucus, proportion college graduates, and Southern Baptist population predicts narrow losses for Obama in PA (48%) and OH (49%) but a big win in Texas (66%).