In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected to the presidency with 277 EC votes out of 531 or 52.17% of the Electoral College vote. This is the equivalent today of just over 280 votes. So assuming that Obama wins re-election, how many of you think he will get from 270 to 280 votes to make this the closest incumbant win ever?
Bush was a far closer incumbent win in 2004. The 2012 election will be more lopsided in the electoral college. The predictions are either 332 or 303 EV for Obama.
Really? 53.16% is less than 52.17%?
No, I don’t think it’s going to be that closer in the electoral college. It’s looking pretty bad for Romney right now in some important swing states like Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania, not to mention Wisconsin and Michigan.
Compared to the Obama win in 2012, yes.
(ninja’d)
NB: Saint Cad is talking about the electoral college, not the popular vote.
Unless Romney manages a major turnaround (a spectacular debate performance is about the only card he has left to play, though a wild card may enter the game from anywhere), Obama will get almost everything (probably not NC or IN, though) he did in 2008.
My prediction is not close:
Obama; 332
Romney; 206
ETA: Yes, I think Obama takes Florida, after all those retired folks who don’t pay federal income tax figure out the they are in the 47% of the people that Romney does not want to work for.
A win between 270-280 is relatively unlikely just because of the happenstance of the current allocation of electoral votes combined with the current party demographics. You have to come up with scenarios in which Obama wins one but not the other of highly-correlated states. What is the scenario in which Obama wins Ohio and Nevada, but not Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, or Florida? Swing states can have different outcomes, of course, but they aren’t so disconnected or distributed in such a way that Obama is likely to win just one or two critical swing states to get to 270 and lose all the others.
To see this in graphical form, you can look at 538’s Electoral Vote Distribution that is a histogram of results based on the model.
The norm is for the EC to amplify the results of the popular vote, and while there have been recent exceptions, this isn’t gonna be one of them.
Yes, Obama will get at least 281 EVs. Barring a substantial change in the political weather, Obama’s going to take Virginia, Ohio, and Wisconsin, which, along with states Romney’s not bothering to contest, takes him up to 278. And he’s ahead in Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida, though he doesn’t have those locked down yet. But Romney would have to sweep those 5 to keep Obama under 281.
Or, alternately, if he doesn’t get 281 EVs, then he’s probably not going to win at all.