I’m trying to organize this into a coherent OP, let’s see if I succeed.
In this threadadaher claims that Romney cannot without taking Florida. I’m not about to argue this point, because I’m having a hard time putting the pieces together, which is the point of this thread.
In this thread, I’m asking for your opinion based on what you know of the electoral votes each state holds. Every tv pundit has their own ideas, but I haven’t paid enough attention to see if someone has done this or not (I’m sure someone has, and I’m sure each one is different).
Here’s the scenario: its election night, and polls are beginning to close on the east coast. You’re watching the election results as each state is called. As each state is called, you sorta mentally fast-forward to the next state that a given candidate needs to win to stay in the race. As the polls close going west, you change or confirm your predictions.
To use Florida as an example, if Romney wins Florida then you claim that Obama needs to win _______ to stay afloat. If Obama takes Ohio, then Romney needs ________ to stay afloat. Does that make sense?
What I’m asking is your predictions on the race, given these variables as you watch the results come in. if a wins b, then x needs to win y to stay competitive. Feel free to share your reasoning why you feel the way you do.
On election night, as each state is called, I’m having a hard time visualizing the remainder of the race based on how each state votes. I know I watched CNN in 2008 and they did a lot of this, but I don’t have CNN now.
It also occurred to me that there are probably websites that have this sorta game available. However, I suspect that (hypothetically) Fox and NPR would give wildly different results, hence my request for YHO.
Florida is huge. If Romney wins it outright, game on. If Obama wins it outright…probably game over. If it’s still too close to call by 10:00 pm eastern, send lawyers, guns, and money. Well, OK, probably won’t need the guns, but send extra lawyers instead.
Much like 2008, Obama has numerous paths to victory while the GOP really only has one.
There is Colorado, Virginia, Ohio and Florida that seem like the important states this time around.
I think if Obama wins any one of those 4, he wins the election (assuming he carries the Kerry states, Iowa, NM and NV. Iowa went democratic for the last 5 or 6 elections, except 2004). Romney has to win all 4 to win, more or less.
Adding in the west coast, southwest (NV and NM), upper midwest and northeast Obama has 263 electoral votes. This is assuming he carries NV and Iowa, both of which have him at about 70% chance of winning.
If Obama carries either OH or FL, it should be over for Romney. Those are the states I will watch for.
Ok, so Florida and Ohio are the big ones. Is there any reliable polls that show where each of the states stand? Not Fox news - type propaganda. In Ohio, Huffpo gives Obama a 3pt lead, Rasmussen has them both dead even. WTF?
It’s possible – not too likely, but possible – than some of the key states will be so close, we won’t know the full outcome till late the next morning…or even a few days later.
Or, if something really ugly happens, we might not know until the Supreme Court rules on it.
I’ll go further and say that Virginia and Florida will both be close enough that the networks won’t call them until a couple of hours later - thereby making them the states that will decide it. In other words, if Florida goes Romney or Obama, there won’t be any more speculation left. Someone will have 270, or close enough to it with enough ‘gimme’ states that there are no ‘X now has to win state ____’ paths left.
Well, this sorta goes back to my last question, namely are there any reliable polls that one can keep track of that gives us an accurate idea of likely outcomes? Perhaps one that utilizes cell phone numbers so we don’t get a Bill O’Reilly vs. Harry Reid situation?
I love 538, and I also really like www.electoral-vote.com. It’s not as rigorous as 538 but I love the commentary every day.
Also, to answer your OP…
Watch Florida and Ohio and Virginia. If Romney manages to win the three of those, then he’s on his way to winning but he still needs to win something else. I made a map with the four most likely states that he would have to win ONE of, on top of those FL/OH/VA, here: 270towin map
If he can manage to pick off any of the states I left blank, then he wins. Otherwise, it’s Obama’s win.
If Romney looses FL or VA, he’s pretty close to done, so conceivably we’ll pretty much know the winner once polls close on the East coast.
If he wins both of those and then Ohio, he’ll probably win the election. Conceivably Obama could still pull it out, but he’d need to win in Iowa and Colorado, which seems unlikely if he’s doing badly enough to have lost FL, VA, OH.
On the other hand if Obama looses FL and VA but wins Ohio, he’s still in relatively good shape as he can loose Iowa and CO and still win (albeit with a thin margin).
For an interesting look at the smallness of Romney’s chances, go to Karl Rove’s site.
He has Obama with 172 safe votes and 99 leaning. That’s 271, enough to win even if Romney gets every single toss-up state. That’s all based on polls before the Ryan pick, which will give Romney a bump just from sheer attention.
Everything has to work for Romney for him to win. Every leaning state, every toss-up state, and a few plucked from the safe basket. He can’t afford to lose any of them. That’s an extraordinarily high bar. If you’re going to chew your nails on election night, remember that as you gnaw.
I think your question has more of less been answered.
The key will be what happens to Ohio and Florida. Pennsylvania and Virginia will play a lesser role, but Romney has to win both Ohio and Florida to not be out pretty early in the evening.
Actually according to 538 the biggest tipping point state is Ohio by a large margin, almost 30% of the time it decides the election. Second is Virginia at 16% and then Florida at 15%. The drop after that is pretty big with Colorado being next at 7.1%
This electoral map is the worst I can see Obama doing given how things stand today. Switch Ohio to Romney and give Obama Florida and the President is re-elected by an even larger margin.
Both situations would give Colorado to Romney and Virginia to Obama so I guess the argument could be made that Virginia will tell us which way things are going when the polls close there.
(There are states on that map I put in Romney’s column that are pretty likely going to be in the Obama column - New Hampshire and Wisconsin in particular. That just shows how much harder it really is for Romney to pull this off.)
Cool. So by the time polls are closed in the eastern time zone, which includes most of these battleground states, we should have a fairly solid idea of who won the election. Sounds like Colorado is the only remaining possible game changer.
I question how accurate some of these election maps are. In Karl Rove’s example, he has Oregon as “leaning” Obama. That’s a joke. I live in Oregon and would bet my life’s savings that we will go Obama. Even when we were pissed at Clinton we still went Blue.