I’ve been saying this for a while. These voter suppression tactics make up the huge elephant in the room that not nearly enough people are talking about; as I see it now, Obama will win reelection unless voter suppression successfully leads to a dramatic decrease in Democratic votes.
But the tides raise and lower all boats. I can’t see Romney winning FL and OH without also winning VA and NC. Likewise if Obama wins NC, he’s steamrolling Romney in all of the other battleground states.
I think that it’s narrowed to FL, OH, PA, and VA. Romney must at least win two of those to have a chance, and may have to win 3. What about the campaign’s ups and downs wouldn’t apply equally in all 4 states? If gas hits $6 gallon, voters in all of those states will take it out on Obama. If unemployment drops to 7%, voters in all of those states will reward Obama.
I think that because of the 2000 and 2004 elections we pay a little more attention that needed to the state by state results instead of the national polls.
At least they omitted the skid mark on the underwear for OH
Same here. It is possible Obama wins about 330 EV by also winning florida, but florida is a tossup. One week it is 55% Obama, the next it is 52% Romney. The most consistently most probable scenario at 538 is about 332 EV for Obama if he wins the Kerry states plus the southwest, OH, VA & FL. That usually is about 13%.
I don’t think NC or PA are in play this year. It’ll be OH, VA & FL this year.
But even if Obama loses all 3 of those swing states, as long as he wins the southwest (CO, NV & NM) as well as the Kerry states, he wins the election with 272 EV.
Obama has multiple paths to victory, so long as he maintains the Kerry states. Which he should.
That’s why I take little stock in all of these scenarios. They are fun to play with, but will likely not happen. Of those six states: OH, VA, FL, CO, NV, and NM the winner will likely take at least 5 of 6. If they split 3-3, then the election is absurdly close on the order of the 2000 election.
I’ve seen prediction where people say, “Well Romney could lose OH and FL, but if he can pick up PA, then…” but those scenarios are silly. If Romney wins PA, he rolls to victory in OH, FL, VA, CO, NV, and NM. A PA victory for Romney would indicate a national trend.
The same way with an Obama victory in NC. Or the idea that SC might even be a toss up. Its absurd. If Obama is competitive in SC, it’s lights out everywhere else for Romney.
On the subject of 538 the most probable outcome is Obama wins the Kerry states plus the southwest states of CO/NM/NV, FL, OH, IA & VA giving him 332.
But the second most probable (for the nov. 6 forecast, not the nowcast) shows Obama with about 345 EV. Silver gives that about a 6% probability.
So how could Obama possibly get 345EV? Is that NC or IN or something else?
Most probable one: http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=pMJ
Obama beats Romney 290 to 248. Florida is a bit iffy, but I was optimistic.
You meant pessimistic. This is my honest prediction. Good guys 320, Darkness 218.
Do you guys think that a Rob Portman VP pick will make Ohio a closer race? That’s what I’ve heard a few pundits say.
Pundits maybe, but not Ohioans.
OH, PA, and MI are not available to Romney, and VA is doubtful (the modernization of the Confederacy is finally becoming a reality). There just is no realistic scenario where Romney can put 270 together, short of some drastic disaster in the next few months that would disqualify the incumbent in many minds.
Wow, why are you so confident? Any specific trend or something that you’ve noticed? I’m genuinely curious, because so many strands of data seem to be pointing to a very tight finish.
The polls of national popular-vote totals are tight, but also meaningless. The sum of individual-state polls in the swing states matter, and there’s a pretty significant Obama lead in most of them. Significant in the sense that Romney won’t be able to change them on his own.
I’m also looking at upsides and downsides. Obama’s pos/neg numbers are pretty well locked in. Romney doesn’t have an upside, but he could collapse at any moment.
I’m confident, too, just looking at the map.
Absolutely guaranteed for Obama:
WA, OR, CA, HI, IL, DC, MD, DE, NJ, NY, VT, RI, CT, MA, ME, MN: 196 votes
Absolutely guaranteed for Romney:
AK, ID, MT, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX, UT, AZ, AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, TN, KY, IN, WV, SC:
181 votes
Very likely Obama:
CO, NM, WI, MI, PA, OH: 78 votes
That doesn’t even consider:
NH, IA, NV, FL, VA: 58 votes
Even giving Romney MO and NC he only gets to 206.
Suppose he carries VA, FL and OH. Not likely by any means to get them all, that only gives him 266. Then he needs either IA or NV to flip. Maybe it could happen, but I doubt it. Not to mention that losing either FL or OH is positively fatal for Romney.
Okay, thanks, guys! Still need to start makin’ phone calls and knockin’ on doors, though…(but we should hold off on deciding exactly who to call or see, and what to tell people/talk to them about, until the various voter suppression ahem voter ID shenanigans are sorted out)…)
In any case, if we’ve learned anything these past four years, it’s that Senate and (especially) Congressional races are crucial. I guess that’s where a lot of our efforts should be directed. But that’s a subject for another thread.
So do any of you guys feel that, as of now, Obama has the election already in the bag?
I’m not quite at that point yet; I think that PA is safely in the bag for Obama - voter suppression be damned - and that state has always been the key in my personal electoral outlook. Still, the other big question mark is Ohio, and if and when the polls start swinging definitively towards the POTUS in that state then I don’t think there’s any way that he could lose the election, and that scenario concedes Virginia and Florida to Romney. Still, I will say that if Romney loses Florida early on during election night then he’s done.
In the bag? No. 2-to-1 favorite is about where I’d put the odds right now.
I’m seeing a very stable, somewhat boring, narrow incumbent re-election much like 2004.
As of now, yes, but that does not necessarily imply that he’ll have it in the bag as of November. If you look at Nate Silver’s site, a lot of the difference between the “now-cast” and the forecast is that the model considers the possibility of some big but unanticipated event throwing everything off. If there is no October Surprise (or if there is one, but it favors Obama), then Obama wins. But historically, October Surprises aren’t all that rare. We can’t say what the game changer will be, but we can consider that there might well be one.
This also shows up in the number-of-EVs histogram. All of the major peaks in the graph correspond to the conventional wisdom plus or minus a state or three, and those all lead to an Obama win. The Romney wins all depend on a major shake-up, and that could be anything, so all of the Romney-win scenarios involve different numbers of EVs, and all are about equally (im)probable.
But if Romney picks up say 3 points in the national polls (3 legitimate points, not a statistical blip one week) then that won’t translate into 5 or 6 points in swing states?
You might ask why, and it’s because the swing states don’t have as many votes as compared to the rest of the country. Romney’s support won’t get much higher in Texas and Obama’s won’t get much lower in California. Minds are made up. Any play in the national poll is reflected more so in swing states.
I can’t see an election where Romney loses the popular vote by 2 points, but loses the EC 330-220. If that happens, we can remake all of the statistical models and Nate Silver is out of a job. The national polls are very important. Look at the one time they weren’t indicative of the winner. Gore won by a minute percentage of a point, only lost the EC by 4 votes, and was 500 some odd Florida votes away from winning. No way is the national popular versus state results THAT distorted.
It could be a $200 million anti-Obama ad blitz in October full of lies and misinformation. By the time the public figure out they’ve been fed a bunch of lies they will have already voted.
The national votes percentage and the electoral college votes percentage are usually vastly different. 2000 was an outlier in this regard, not the rule.
2008: Obama got 67.84% of the electoral votes, but 52.87% of the popular vote
2004: Bush got 53.16% of the electoral votes, but 50.73% of the popular vote
1992 & 1996: Clinton got nearly 70% of electoral votes, but less than 50% of the popular vote in both elections.
1980 & 1984: Reagan got over 90% of electoral votes in these elections, but barely over 50% of the popular vote in 1980, and just under 59% in 1984.
As you can see, Obama actually got a much higher percentage of the national vote compared to Reagan in 1980, or Clinton in 1992/1996, but won less electoral votes than these candidates.
So you are right that in absolute terms, the winner of one generally predicts the winner of the other… but in actual percentage terms, there is not much correlation there at all.