The Electoral Count

Mott the Hoople

Mott the Hoople

Sweet Jane
That's not looking good for Romney right now. None of the polling data is. Obama currently polls around 49 to 44 vs Romney. In approval ratings Obama has a 13 point lead over a 49% approval rating for Obama and a 36% approval rating for Romney. It's the electoral caculus though that has to have Romney very worried.

The polling data is showing that 227 electoral votes are in states that heavily favor or will most likely vote Obama as comparted to 181 for the Republican nominee. That leaves 10 swing States where the polling falls inside the margin of error. Those swing States are OH, NH, PA, VA, NC, Fl, IA, MO, Co and NV. Of those 10 States 7 show Obama leading (OH, NH, PA, VA, IA, CO, NV) with two States that have razor thing margins for Obama (Fl, NC) and one State favoring Romney, MO

Considering that recent polling data is trending in Obama's favor due to the improving economy and that even if you gave Romney the benefit of the doubt on FL and NC and if the election were held today Obama would win decisively at 303 EV to 235 EV for Romney. Not a landslide but a sound defeat. Personally I think that between Romney's gafs and the actions of the tea baggers in the house of reps (a gift that keeps on giving for Obama) Obama has a whole lot of fodder to use during the campaign season to expand upon that lead and I believe he will.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html
 
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There is basically a political eternity between now & November.

Still, Romney is a very weak candidate. I think he can win (Bush's 2 victories taught me that), but it's a real longshot, and he'll need the economy to not improve in the interim to have a chance.
 
While President Obama is very popular currently, remember the Republicans have not even started the nationwide attack they have planned after the summer. The polls do not mean much untill after the Republican comvention in Tampa.

The only thing the polls mean today is that the people currently perfer Obama to Romney.
 
I will say that I would rather it be like it currently is than if Romeny were beating President Obama. Currently President Obama is more popular than Reagan was at this point in his presidency.
 
Jarod said:
While President Obama is very popular currently, remember the Republicans have not even started the nationwide attack they have planned after the summer. The polls do not mean much untill after the Republican comvention in Tampa.

The only thing the polls mean today is that the people currently perfer Obama to Romney.
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Well that's a ship that travels both ways. When it comes to the campaign mud slinging I think Obama has far more ammunition to persuade swing voters than Romney does. The obstructionism by the House Republicans, as I stated earlier, is a gift that keeps on giving and Romney's gafs will get a lot of airplay come campaign time. Add to that, that for once an incumbant Democrat will have more money to spend then his Republican counter part (and that hasn't happened a lot in our history) and I'd say Obama still has a significant advantage.
 
Jarod said:
I will say that I would rather it be like it currently is than if Romeny were beating President Obama. Currently President Obama is more popular than Reagan was at this point in his presidency.
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There about the same. Mid 40's. Reagan benefited in his re-election by the Dems nominating a very weak candidate. I don't think Romney is nearly as weak a candidate as Mondale. Time will tell though
 
Derp Derp said:
Well that's a ship that travels both ways. When it comes to the campaign mud slinging I think Obama has far more ammunition to persuade swing voters than Romney does. The obstructionism by the House Republicans, as I stated earlier, is a gift that keeps on giving and Romney's gafs will get a lot of airplay come campaign time. Add to that, that for once an incumbant Democrat will have more money to spend then his Republican counter part (and that hasn't happened a lot in our history) and I'd say Obama still has a significant advantage.
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The Republican primaries are the gift that keep on giving. Romney has gone so far right for the primaries that when the general election takes place he will have lost a lot of moderate voters and forget the left.
 
Rana said:
The Republican primaries are the gift that keep on giving. Romney has gone so far right for the primaries that when the general election takes place he will have lost a lot of moderate voters and forget the left.
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Then there is that. Then there is his flip/floping on issues. He did it again this week on the contraception issue where he originally criticized the the Blunt ammendment then flipped again earlier this week when he said that his comments were taken out of context and that he really supported the Blunt ammendment. Boy that was stupid. he should have kept his mouth shut. Santorum was getting clobbered for his support of the Blunt ammendment and poll after poll shows that it's hugely unpopular with the majority of Americans. He should have just kept quiet.

Even if the economy was to show marginal improvement that's a risky attack by Republicans cause Obama only has to counter that Romney is advocating the same Republican policies that got us into the shithole to begin with.
 
Derp Derp said:
Then there is that. Then there is his flip/floping on issues. He did it again this week on the contraception issue where he originally criticized the the Blunt ammendment then flipped again earlier this week when he said that his comments were taken out of context and that he really supported the Blunt ammendment. Boy that was stupid. he should have kept his mouth shut. Santorum was getting clobbered for his support of the Blunt ammendment and poll after poll shows that it's hugely unpopular with the majority of Americans. He should have just kept quiet.

Even if the economy was to show marginal improvement that's a risky attack by Republicans cause Obama only has to counter that Romney is advocating the same Republican policies that got us into the shithole to begin with.
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Almost all politicians change some positions at some point in their careers, but I have never seen anything like Romney.

It seems like he'll adjust his position on basically a week-to-week basis, depending on who he is talking to or who he is trying to appeal to at any given time.
 
Onceler said:
Almost all politicians change some positions at some point in their careers, but I have never seen anything like Romney.

It seems like he'll adjust his position on basically a week-to-week basis, depending on who he is talking to or who he is trying to appeal to at any given time.
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That's the current joke about Romney. If you don't like one of his policies or positions, just wait a few minutes and he'll change it. Sooner or later he's going to have to stand for something or he'll get blown out.
 
Jarod said:
With the Republicans opposing the auto industry bailout, I suspect the Democrats will suprise you in Michigan.
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Supporting the Wall Street bail out, too. The Republicans have a real mess piling up against Obama.

Will there be a third party rise up to win it all?
 
Derp Derp said:
That's not looking good for Romney right now. None of the polling data is. Obama currently polls around 49 to 44 vs Romney. In approval ratings Obama has a 13 point lead over a 49% approval rating for Obama and a 36% approval rating for Romney. It's the electoral caculus though that has to have Romney very worried.

The polling data is showing that 227 electoral votes are in states that heavily favor or will most likely vote Obama as comparted to 181 for the Republican nominee. That leaves 10 swing States where the polling falls inside the margin of error. Those swing States are OH, NH, PA, VA, NC, Fl, IA, MO, Co and NV. Of those 10 States 7 show Obama leading (OH, NH, PA, VA, IA, CO, NV) with two States that have razor thing margins for Obama (Fl, NC) and one State favoring Romney, MO

Considering that recent polling data is trending in Obama's favor due to the improving economy and that even if you gave Romney the benefit of the doubt on FL and NC and if the election were held today Obama would win decisively at 303 EV to 235 EV for Romney. Not a landslide but a sound defeat. Personally I think that between Romney's gafs and the actions of the tea baggers in the house of reps (a gift that keeps on giving for Obama) Obama has a whole lot of fodder to use during the campaign season to expand upon that lead and I believe he will.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html
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Obama has typically been ahead in this race. However, Romney in particular, who had been able to somewhat hold his own with Obama (even though Obama was still typically slightly ahead), seems to have taken a nosedive in recent weeks. The primary race is hurting him. This is the exact opposite of what happened in the 2008 race for the Democrats - the primary kept the Democratic candidates in the news while McCain faded into the background for a long period of time.

Perhaps, though, Romney can recover after the primary is over, and he's no longer forced to make obsequious appeals to the increasingly fanatical base of the Republican party. If the Republicans elect Santorum, no such recovery can really be hoped for.
 
One interesting feature of the Republican primary this time around is that they've reverted to using proportional representation to selecting delegates in a lot of states, like the Democrats do. Of course, they haven't entirely abolished WTA primaries - winning the WTA primary in Florida, with it's huge swath of delegates, was a huge boost to Romney's campaign. But in the proportional Michigan primary, where Romney inched out a victory by a few points, he received only 16 delegates compared to Santorum's 14. Unfortunately for Santorum, most of the races he's won seem to be in the PR states, while most of Romney's wins seem to be in the large WTA ones.

The Republican party really should mandate one system or the other, though. Because WTA exaggerates the position of the majority, essentially allowing them to cast the votes of the minority, it naturally gives states that use it an advantage over those that allocate their reps proportionally. Except in the case of a landslide, only a handful of delegates are really in play in even the largest states when it comes to PR, while even in a slight victory in a small WTA state can give you much more. If, for instance, Colorado's electoral votes were apportioned by PR, a candidate would need to receive 70% of the vote for more than one electoral vote to be in play - which is pretty much never going to happen. That would effectively give the voters of Colorado about 1/3 of the say of even the smallest state. Now, if everyone is using PR, this isn't a problem, and it's a fairer system overall. But that's only if everyone uses it.
 
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The only third party candidate who could've seriously hoped to affect anything was Bloomberg. His chances weren't that good in 2008. And they're far worse now - he was typically polling the 20's and 30's min 2008, now he's in the teens or single digits.

Ron Paul is polling in the teens, but he doesn't have the vast resources of the Republican/Democratic parties or Bloomberg. I doubt he'd be able to sustain a campaign. Plus, third party candidates very often have exaggerated polling number, especially early on. McKinney and Barr, for instance, could poll up to 4% or so in the 2008 election, and their final results were like a tenth of that.

The vote of third party candidates often collapses even compared to polls taken the day before. Chris Dagget, in the New Jersey governors race, was able to poll in the teens and the twenties, but when push came to shove, he only got 5% of the vote in actual election. Still, I think Ron Paul could do better than a typical Libertarian candidate. Maybe as low as 3 percent, maybe as high as 7. Would be very surprised if he even got anywhere close to his current three way polling numbers.
 
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Jarod said:
While President Obama is very popular currently, remember the Republicans have not even started the nationwide attack they have planned after the summer. The polls do not mean much untill after the Republican comvention in Tampa.

The only thing the polls mean today is that the people currently perfer Obama to Romney.
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Many of the polls also reflect the "wishes" of people who will vote for Romney later to be somebody else. Those who really want Santorum will say that they won't vote for Romney in the polls in the hopes that it will cause others to vote against him in the primary.

During a primary with 4 candidates, many people who support 1 over the rest will try to sway others by saying they'll never vote for so-and-so during a poll, but later when they are the candidate they not just support them, but more "loudly" than others.
 
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