When Democratic voters are given a choice between President Obama and a nameless alterative, they choose the latter around 20 percent of the time, according to a Washington Post analysis:
A Fix review of the 16 states in which voters have been given an alternative to Obama on the Democratic primary ballot—whether it be an actual candidate, a write-in, or simply "uncommitted"—shows that Obama is averaging 84.6 percent of the vote.
In the five states where there was an actual named opponent, though, Obama’s share of the vote is considerably lower: 72.7 percent.
The phenomenon, as you might guess, is much more pronounced in the South and Appalachia, where Obama is averaging 74 percent of the vote in the six states that have offered an Obama alternative so far.
The Post reports that this could pose a problem for the president going forward:
In a wholly non-competitive Democratic primary in New Hampshire in January, a smattering of candidates took 18 percent of the Democratic primary vote, including 10 percent who chose to write in a candidate rather than vote for Obama. This despite the fact that independents were free to vote in the much more competitive Republican primary.
Similarly, earlier this month in North Carolina, which like New Hampshire is a state the president is counting on to help him win a second term, more than 20 percent of Democratic primary voters chose the "uncommitted" option over Obama.
Among the other states, between 11 and 14 percent of voters in Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Tennessee registered no candidate preference rather than vote for Obama. And in Missouri, 12 percent voted for other candidates or "uncommitted."
Meanwhile, Obama performed poorly among Kentucky’s Democratic voters, garnering 58 percent of the vote against the choice of "uncommitted," the AP reports.