They ran models, and they claim that Obama will beat Romney 303-235.
So Obama is a drunk?
What?
Here’s the link in question.
The thread title is missing a consonant, which prompted my joke.
Do you mean punctuation?
You’re right! JUST saw it!
Missing a consonant, eh? Wouldn’t that mean Obama is constantly complaining all the time?
Oops. Nevermind. I was going for another joke that just doesn’t work. Not that my first offering was very good, but this one failed miserably, so I removed it.
Wining!
I must say that I don’t tend to associate Yahoo! with “robust and accurate statistical analysis”. Mostly I associate it with “Internet idiots who shouldn’t be allowed out in public without a minder” but that’s just because I’ve seen Yahoo! Answers.
The further I progressed through the article, the more I wondered why I should believe any of its assertions. It seemed to be more of a self-promotion piece than anything else, and annoyingly written to boot. I half-expected there to be a reveal at the end that it was submitted by someone at The Onion.
Yeah, they seem to assume that a tiny advantage in polled vote percentage meant a certainty that Obama would carry the state. Poorly done, I think.
Nine months from now.
Actually, The Onion has already called the election for Romney: http://www.theonion.com/video/diebold-accidentally-leaks-results-of-2008-electio,14214/
I have to like this article, because it says essentially what I’ve been saying here for months.
For some reason, people think that the 2008 election was very close, a repeat of 2000 minus the Supreme Court. It wasn’t. Obama won by about 7 percentage points in votes and the electoral victory was enormous, 364-173. Romney will have to pick up 97 electoral votes to slid across with the barest margin of victory. That’s an absolutely enormous hurdle.
As I’ve pointed out, Obama won every upper Midwestern state in 2008. If he lost them all - that’s Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota - it wouldn’t matter. He’d have to lose yet another state that he won. And that’s true even if the Republicans keep every single state that they won in 2008.* How likely is that?
Forget the Midwest as a block, since there’s no way Obama will lose them all unless a world-shaking event occurs. Where do the 97 electors come from? Give Romney Florida, North Carolina, and Indiana, as that Yahoo article does. That’s 55. It would take the next 6 states on his chart - Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Colorado, Iowa, and either Pennsylvania or Nevada - to bring the total over 97.
Can Romney really swing nine states? That’s incredibly unlikely. I’m positive the math is the reason why so many Republicans refused to run or dropped out of the race very early. A nine state swing against an incumbent president is extremely difficult. It’s true that both Clinton and Reagan did it, but both Bush and Carter were far more unpopular than Obama.
In addition, I also have to agree with this part of the article:
The numbers for the economy have been getting better for months. That could change rapidly with a European collapse or a war in the Strait of Hormuz but the straightline extrapolation is currently favorable.
The personality factor is a wild card. Clinton and Reagan were brilliant and charisma-laden campaigners. Romney … isn’t. That extra bit of oomph that could swing an uncertain state is totally missing. Obama, by contrast, is more likeable when he gets out of the White House.
Obama has the power of incumbency, he will have the money, and he has a comfortable margin of states to lose. That’s the trifecta.
*This is going by the electoral votes in 2008. I haven’t adjusted for the redistricting in this election, but the principal stands.
This.
My first reaction to the thread title was: “Is this the same Yahoo! that Yahoo! Answers comes from?”
OP, please hurry up and check Google on the same question so we can find out how the YouTube commenters see the race playing out…
No, he’s a grape-stomper. Yahoo clocked him at 303 gulpiliters of juice in one hour to Romney’s 235, based on past performance at the Dijon Trials in 2009 and 2006 respectively. They face off in November at a location in the Napa Valley somewhere.
The map that Yahoo paints probably is the single most likely electoral map, given current information. But just because it’s the most likely one doesn’t mean it’s going to be exactly right. There are a combinatorically large number of possible electoral maps, and even a very large number that are nearly as likely as that one. You have to find the total probability of all of the maps that win for one candidate or the other, which is a very daunting proposition. This is what Nate Silver will be doing in a few months, but he’s not now, because he recognizes that the data are not yet robust enough to support such an elaborate model.
Yes, because answers that come from any Yahoo out there (pun intended) is the same as answers determined by rigorous political analysis.
Oh, and YouTubers vote: so I’d guess their opinion in aggregate would actually be worth something.
Babby stole the extra letter from Winer.
It is laughable to think Obama will do any better than in 2008 if Romney is the nominee. And there have been a similar shift of large amounts of states before: 1928-32, 76-80, 88-92, 96-00, 04-08. In particular many traditional Republican states like Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina went Democrat and Democrats maximized their turnout. I doubt Obama can get as lucky this time around.
IMO, it’s too early for any useful predictions yet. Even of Romney had the nom sewed up it would be too early. Obama has the advantage for now, but it may not last.
It wasn’t just luck, it was the best “ground game” campaign organization I have ever seen or heard of. The Obama campaign itself had 2 offices just in southern Fairfax County, VA. They had offices all over Virginia. Whatever else goes on this autumn, you will see Obama '12 offices spring up everywhere. That’s how you flip states like IN, NC, and VA. Even if Obama doesn’t win them, he forces Romney (or not-Romney) to put effort into a state that should be easy.