Presidential election minus one day

My tip: Obama to win 303-235, carrying Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.

If you’re a Crikey subscriber, you can observe my reading of the situation here, which concludes thus:

I don’t see any reason to bet against the view shared by FiveThirtyEight and the RealClearPolitics state polling averages: that Obama will win the electoral college 303 to 235, carrying Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, while falling short in Florida and North Carolina.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,468 comments on “Presidential election minus one day”

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  1. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100188256/the-religious-right-is-dead/
    [The Religious Right is dead
    By Damian Thompson
    US politics Last updated: November 7th, 2012

    Guys – have a quick puff of your joint before heading down the aisle with your boyfriend. In addition to re-electing Obama, various American states voted to legalise dope and gay marriage. OK, so they weren’t necessarily the same states, but you get the picture. Last night was a victory for secular liberal America – or, to put it another way, America’s emerging secular liberal majority. The United States is still pious by European standards, but the gap is narrowing every year. You cannot visit American bookshops without being struck by the popularity of atheist cheerleaders or agnostic self-help gurus; when I meet a young New Yorker or Californian I assume – as I would in Britain – that they don’t go to church, have liberal positions on abortion and homosexuality and generally despise the conservative religious activism that, until so recently, had the power to elect presidents.]
    worth a read

  2. http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Barack-Obama-US-president-election-Republican-Demo-pd20121108-ZTSU8?OpenDocument&src=sph&src=rot

    “Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey told a Sydney Institute audience yesterday that if Obama lost, it would be due to his over-promising and under-delivering. The Sydney Morning Herald quotes him as saying “you cannot over-promise in politics anywhere, it leaves an air of disappointment”.”

    So Joe Hockey failed a prediction.

    Joe Hockey doesn’t realise that you have to do positive things to archive stuff.

  3. Leroy@1401


    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100188256/the-religious-right-is-dead/

    The Religious Right is dead
    By Damian Thompson
    US politics Last updated: November 7th, 2012

    Guys – have a quick puff of your joint before heading down the aisle with your boyfriend. In addition to re-electing Obama, various American states voted to legalise dope and gay marriage. OK, so they weren’t necessarily the same states, but you get the picture. Last night was a victory for secular liberal America – or, to put it another way, America’s emerging secular liberal majority. The United States is still pious by European standards, but the gap is narrowing every year. You cannot visit American bookshops without being struck by the popularity of atheist cheerleaders or agnostic self-help gurus; when I meet a young New Yorker or Californian I assume – as I would in Britain – that they don’t go to church, have liberal positions on abortion and homosexuality and generally despise the conservative religious activism that, until so recently, had the power to elect presidents.


    worth a read

    I second that and particularly liked this bit:
    [ America has just re-elected its first post-Christian president (unless you count Jefferson). I’ve never thought that Barack Obama’s churchgoing was anything more than Chicago politics: why else would a sophisticated Harvard-educated lawyer sit through years of incoherent ranting by the Rev Jeremiah Wright?]
    Thanks for posting the link.

  5. Stephen Downes ‏@downesy

    Bolt sets out to mislead. Calls Obama’s win “narrow” (303+ EC votes / 50.4%) but says Bush (271 / 47.9%) had a mandate to invade Iraq
    Retweeted by George Bludger

  6. [Bolt sets out to mislead. Calls Obama’s win “narrow” (303+ EC votes / 50.4%) ]
    Obama is going to win Florida, so that makes it 332.

  7. Zoidlord
    [Bolt sets out to mislead. Calls Obama’s win “narrow” (303+ EC votes / 50.4%) ]

    Re Obama’s 50.4 % .St Ronnie Ray Gun’s 1980 popular vote 50.7% .George W Arbusto 2000 47.87 % .Even Bill Clinton only managed 43.0 % and 49.2 % . It puts Obama’s 50.4 into perspective.

  9. From Wiki today.

    Popular vote

    Obama 60,558,670 Percentage 50%

    Romney 57,734,832 Percentage 48%

    That’s nearly 3 million more votes to Obama.

  10. [Even Bill Clinton only managed 43.0 % and 49.2 % . It puts Obama’s 50.4 into perspective.]
    Obama and Reagan are the only two presidents since FDR to win two elections with over 50% of the vote.

  12. Poroti:

    [Dick Morris explains why he believes Mitt Romney could decisively defeat Obama and seal his fate as a one-term president]

    He was still tweeting his ‘insight’ as the count was coming in, talking up a Romney win … Here’s a sample of his feed:

    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    Prediction: Romney 325, Obama 213 http://www.dickmorris.com/prediction-romney-325-obama-213/ … #Election2012 #romney #obama @hannityshow @America_Live @drudge_report @gretawire]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 Obama only carried women in Virginia by 5 pts. not enough fo him]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 Romney needs to run 7 pts better than McCain to win. In Indiana, with 9% in, hes outperforming by 14 pts. ]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 romney pulls ahead in Fla 51-49 with half in. Important! ]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 so far I see nothing to disabuse me of the notion that Romney will win by a lot. Nothing to confirm it either]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 Romney could win Fla by 5-8, enough for a national bg win]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 with 1/3 in, Romney is 12 ahead. Could be a very big win. Expected to go Romneyby 5 if more, could be big win ]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 catching up in Fla. Good lead in Virginia]

    Only now does he become less bullish …

    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 Obama ahead by 1 in Fla with 72% in. Scary]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 Virginia looks solid but Fla and and NC are too close]
    Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 bad news big time a call for Pennsylvania to go for Obama. But there is still Ohio and Wisconsin (and Minnesota)]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 wixonsin to Obama could be the ball game. we can still win with Ohio. I really hate calling Pa and Wisc so early and easy]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 I think they are calling states way to soon. Stick around and watch the actual vote counts in Penn and Wisc]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 our path to the nomination is not blocked as long as we do not lose Ohio, NC, Fla, and Va]

    The nomination??? Gosh … what a Freudian slip!

    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 we really could win Fla, Ohio, NC, Va, and Col and win the election]
    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    #election2012 Ohio closed well from a big margin in early voting to a 2 pt obama lead with still 1/3 left to count. good sign]

    And after all that, finally,

    [Dick Morris ‏@DickMorrisTweet
    Why I Goofed! Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert! http://www.dickmorris.com/why-i-goofed-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/ … #Election2012 #romney #obama @hannityshow @America_Live @drudge_report #gop]

    Goofed? Is that what weeks of unadulterated reality denying blather is best described. It sounds as if he is claiming to have misspoken.

  13. I loved Morris description of Obama as having a”european socialist agenda”….if only ?

    Thanks for all that stuff Fran
    and his book”Here come the black helicopters ” ?????????

  15. Krauthammer’s four words when he knew Obama had it won have been the most brilliant of the entire campaign.

    “He has no mandate”.

    Just brilliant.

  17. Deblonay:

    I’ve looked it up now, so for the record … in reverse order …

    Obama, Reagan, Eisenhower, FDR (four times all well over 50 with high turnouts) William McKinley (1896, 1900) Ulysses S Grant and Andrew Jackson.

    Of course blacks didn’t vote in elections until 1869 and even after that there was massive voter suppression … We probably shouldn’t start counting until after 1965.

    Women didn’t have the vote everywhere in the US until 1941, so maybe we ought not to count records before that on gender grounds.

  18. Fran/ deblonay – a number managed over 50% once – even GWB with 50.73% in 2004, his dad in 1988 (53.37%) and Nixon in his second term with a whopping 60.67%, despite the brewing storm.

    Reagan was the last before Obama to manage it twice.

  20. Rod Hagen:

    Nixon ran one of the dirtiest campaigns in US history (his re-electiion campaign was entitled “CREEP” — so strangely apt) against McGovern so perhaps his effort in 1972 should be discounted on Lance Armstrong grounds.

    Bush Jnr of course ran as a war President and ran one of the dirtier campaigns {the “Swiftboat” meme} against Kerry — and even then Obama probably will top his 2004 percentage this time around.

  22. “He worked so closely with Democrats in Massachussetts”.

    Then both of them mentioning sea levels and warming the planet.

    I mean seriously, that’s just a cut and paste from Romney’s stump speech.

    “I’ve got some information from swing states” as if he’s privvy to it.

  24. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/us/politics/little-to-show-for-cash-flood-by-big-donors.html
    [Little to Show for Cash Flood by Big Donors
    By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and JESS BIDGOOD
    Published: November 7, 2012

    At the private air terminal at Logan Airport in Boston early Wednesday, men in unwrinkled suits sank into plush leather chairs as they waited to board Gulfstream jets, trading consolations over Mitt Romney’s loss the day before.

    ………….

    And as calls came in on Wednesday from some of the donors who had poured more than $300 million into the pair of big-spending outside groups founded in part by Karl Rove — perhaps the leading political entrepreneur of the super PAC era — he offered them a grim upside: without us, the race would not have been as close as it was.

    The most expensive election in American history drew to a close this week with a price tag estimated at more than $6 billion, propelled by legal and regulatory decisions that allowed wealthy donors to pour record amounts of cash into races around the country. ]

  30. I think the issue with Florida might be the 0.5% recount provision. They just need to be sure it is just above that level….if it is just below that level then they need to do a recount.

    I will resist the huge temptation to point out that I picked Obama to win Florida by 0.5% (about where it is currently) as I have too much class to gloat….

    😉

  31. [I think the issue with Florida might be the 0.5% recount provision. They just need to be sure it is just above that level….if it is just below that level then they need to do a recount.]
    There’s something like 200,000 pre-poll ballots that haven’t been counted, but many of them are from a county that Obama won with 62% of the vote, so I expect Obama’s lead to just get bigger.

  33. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-usa-campaign-israel-palestinians-idUSBRE8A61D920121107
    __________________see above

    Reuters looks at Netanyahu’s problem He and the Zionist Lobby spent a fortune on attacks on Obama on US TV..with an infamous add in Florida with Netanyahuu in a role and funded by Adelson” who rejoices in the title of “the Richest Jew in America” is said to have spent 70 million dollars on the anti-Obama campaign

    Netanyahu who thought that Romeny would support a war in the Gulf now has to face Obama…never a friend but now a man who owes the Israeli nothing and knows all…interesting times for Netanyahu after a major blunder

  34. an odd (racist?) cartoon in the OZ
    (has anyone heard a Tweet out of Rupert who must be spitting chips…he liked Romney but just loved Ryan

  36. Obama won emphatically, winning over 300 electoral votes and a majority (not a plurality) of the popular vote. His party also made gains in the Senate and a modest gain in the gerrymandered-to-death House.

    The swing states were close because… they were swing states.

    No spin can change this, Obama won clearly and concisely.

  38. Interesting how things might pan out for the next few POTUS elections:

    The Democrat “Base” electoral college vote is 247.

    This is made up of all the states that have chosen the Democrat in the last 6 elections.

    Then there are 3 states which have had margins >5% in the last decade (the “Lean”):
    Nevada: 6% & 12% (2012 & 2008)
    Iowa: 5% & 9%
    New Hampshire: 5% & 9%

    With these 3 “Leans” plus the “Base” the Democrat gets to 263 ECV.

    Then all the Democrat needs to do is win ONE of the FOUR states they have won for the last decade:
    (29 ECV) Florida: 1% & 2%
    (18 ECV) Ohio: 2% & 4%
    (13 ECV) Virginia: 3% & 6%
    (9 ECV) Colorado:4% & 6%

    So, in the future, it comes down to:
    the Base,
    the Leans
    and any one of the above 4

    With >25% of the electorate (13% Black, 10% Hispanic and 3% Asian/Other) solidly backing the Democrats (by 95%, 70% and 60%), the above tasks looks solid for some time…

  41. Mod Lib @ 1437

    [ Does anyone know how Obama did in Nebraska 2 in 2012? ]

    I don’t have any numbers, but I can summarise in one word: Badly.

    After Obama carried Nebraska 2 in 2008, the Nebraska state legislature changed the boundaries to make it harder for a Democrat to win it again. It was a deliberate act of gerrymandering by the Republican-dominated legislature, embarrassed by what happened in 2008.

  42. Mod Lib @ 1438

    [ Then all the Democrat needs to do is win ONE of the FOUR states they have won for the last decade:
    (29 ECV) Florida: 1% & 2%
    (18 ECV) Ohio: 2% & 4%
    (13 ECV) Virginia: 3% & 6%
    (9 ECV) Colorado:4% & 6%]

    Of these, I think Virginia and Colorado are the Dem’s best chancess. Both states have seen influxes of new, left-leaning voters (especially in northern Virginia, which is essentially greater DC), and the trend is likely to continue.

    Ohio typically leans Republican, and its demographics are fairly stable. Obama was helped along in Ohio by the auto bailouts, but the effect won’t last forever.

    As for Florida… who knows.

    BTW, by 2020 (although perhaps not as early as 2016) Arizona and North Carolina will likely be in play, as genuine swing states. Unless the GOP do a better job enticing Hispanic voters, then Arizona might actually be Dem-leaning.

  43. Obama has won Florida. Thus the final EV is 332-206 to Obama

    The Final Senate tally is in too. As of 3 January 2013, the composition will be 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans and 2 (left or liberal) independents.

    As for the House, there are still 6 seats to be called. In 5 of them, the Democratic candidates have narrow leads, the 6th one is in Louisiana and thus, due to the state’s electoral laws, will go to a run-off election in a few weeks time, but both runoff candidates will be Republicans so we can call this seat Republican, so the final predicted tally there will be 235 Republicans, 200 Democrats (-7 GOP, +7 Dem)

  44. The electoral map has changed enormously since JFK squeaked home with possibly dodgy wins in Texas and Illinois. Now, for a couple more elections at least, Texas remains Bush red and Illinois is indelibly
    Obama blue.

    Florida continues to be an embarrassment. The predidential count is 97% completed and Obama is some 45,000 votes ahead, but the final result is not expected till Saturday our time.

    This is partly due to Repug attempts to suppress the Democratic. Previously people would pour out of the black churches and vote at pre-poll booths. But Sunday pre-poll voting was ended.

    Republican Governor Rick Scott fought a court battle to reduce the number of early voting days from 13 to 8, causing very long lines in many Florida cities.

    Some voters waited in line most of the day, and lines continued past midnight on election day.

    The Florida ballot was also extremely long, weighed down with a dozen pages of ballot questions that baffled many voters. Even voters familiar with the ballot questions took two to three times longer to vote than usual.

    Certificated votes are taking far longer than usual to check.

    Attempts by Ohio Republicans to curtail pre-poll voting were largely, though not entirely and probably not permanently, prevented by court action.

    Pennsylvania does not have pre-poll voting and long lines were again evident in the big cities where Democratic voters predominate. Some voters are deterred but many are more determined than ever not to lose their right to vote.

    Oh for an AEC in the United States of America!

  45. Yes, the USA can learn a lot from Australia about how to implement democracy: an independent, national body like the AEC to conduct elections; uniform voting practices and methods across the country; preferential voting; compulsory voting; and legislated support for one vote, one value.

  46. A US equivalent of the AEC would be a great idea. But it will never happen. The states will never support it. State legislatures want to hold on to the privilege of deciding boundaries for federal districts. This allows rampant gerrymandering, by designing boundaries that give “their” side the advantage in House elections. Its seen as one of the perks of being in power – and completely legal.

    For example, a recent “redistribution” (re-districting) of GOP-dominated Texas created some really odd-shaped districts, with one particular district designed to quarantine a large chunk of the Hispanic vote into one snake-like district.

    Some states do the right thing. Iowa lets an independent body decide where its federal districts should be drawn. But it’s exceptional in this regard.

  47. The biggest barriers to an “AEC” are:

    1. Partisanship of legislatures
    2. The entire structure of the US Civil Service being partisan in nature
    3. For a federal agency, constitutionality. Even if this is a grey area, I am unsure the Roberts Court would consider it constitutional.

    However an independent universal electoral body should be something to push for in the US. Even if it’s an uphill battle, it should start being enthusiastically advocated…

  48. Carey Moore@1447


    The biggest barriers to an “AEC” are:

    1. Partisanship of legislatures
    2. The entire structure of the US Civil Service being partisan in nature
    3. For a federal agency, constitutionality. Even if this is a grey area, I am unsure the Roberts Court would consider it constitutional.

    However an independent universal electoral body should be something to push for in the US. Even if it’s an uphill battle, it should start being enthusiastically advocated…

    PMJG should make an offer to Obama for Australian assistance to implement democracy in the US. What they have at present is a sham.

  49. [However an independent universal electoral body should be something to push for in the US. Even if it’s an uphill battle, it should start being enthusiastically advocated.]

    It’s more than just an uphill battle. It’s positively Sisyphean. The states will never surrender this power to the feds.

  50. The biggest, practically unsurmountable barrier to an “American AEC” is the U.S. Constitution and its provisions for the election of the President:

    The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

    Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress;
    […]
    The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
    […]
    The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President.

    There is nothing there about democratic elections; it is the States’ Legislatures that appoint ‘Electors’ who then elect the President, any which way they choose. It is just a convention that those State electors are currently determined by public, democratic vote (with the winner-takes-all approach for most states); any state could easily modify the process for choosing the Electors.

    Americans take their federalism very seriously, and any attempt at standardising the electoral procedures would require either a constitutional amendment, or a ‘compact’ between all states.

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