Presidential prediction: The candidate who defies history and wins will be . . .
History and the numbers say Barack Obama will be re-elected tomorrow. History and the intangibles suggest Mitt Romney will unseat him. Which will prevail?
Let’s look at each.
The numbers have moved solidly in Obama’s favor. He caught Romney in the Real Clear Politics average of national opinion polls on Halloween after trailing for the better part of the previous three weeks. More importantly, he holds leads — usually narrow leads, but leads nonetheless — in enough swing states to push him past the threshold of 270 electoral votes (EVs).
There’s been much parsing of the polls this year, much of it focused on the partisan-ID breakdowns that various pollsters were using. A poll of “likely voters” inherently tells us something about who the pollster believes will actually bother to vote, and that’s as much art as it is science. Many pollsters have been forecasting an electorate similar to that of 2008, a wave election that saw Obama rack up 365 EVs and the Democrats claim a huge majority in the House and, eventually if briefly, a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate.
It strikes me as very unlikely that the electorate will tip so heavily in favor of self-identifying Democrats again. That said, the pollsters would have to be very wrong for Romney to win enough states to capture the presidency. If you look at the RCP average for the swing states, he has a lead in states with a total of 235 EVs. For him to surpass 270, the polls would have to have been wrong by more than 2.8 percentage points on average — bumping his total to 285 EVs.
One of the last states that would flip to him in that scenario would be Ohio. That’s ominous because no Republican has ever won the presidency without winning Ohio.
On the other hand, Obama arguably has an even tougher historical precedent to overcome. Only two presidents have won re-election with a smaller number of EVs. The first was Woodrow Wilson in 1916, who had captured an excessive number of states in 1912 because William Howard Taft and Teddy Roosevelt split so many votes on the right. That won’t be the case in this year’s election. In the event, Wilson did increase his share of the popular vote, from 41.8 percent in 1912 to 49.2 percent in 1916.
The second was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won a larger margin in both the popular vote and the Electoral College in his first re-election (1936) but tapered off in his third and fourth presidential victories (1940 and 1944) — situations that aren’t really analogous to Obama’s seeking a second term.
Barring a huge turn of events, Obama is not going to repeat his 2008 performance in terms of EVs or the popular vote (he won 52.7 percent of the latter four years ago). So his re-election would be fairly historic.
Why do presidents almost never win re-election with smaller majorities? Maybe it’s a matter of a small sample size; only 15 men have ever been elected to two or more consecutive terms as president. Or maybe voters tend to decide the incumbent either deserves re-election or doesn’t, and move either decisively in his direction or away from it.
If it’s the latter, almost every other measure of this contest favors Romney. Enthusiasm has been higher among Republicans almost uniformly. Obama breaks even in approval ratings — at best — and has lost his edge in favorability. Self-described independent voters have favored Romney — often by double-digit margins — in most polls, regardless of the top-line leader.
The states that moved into the “tossup” category during the past month are states the Democrats once considered comfortably in Obama’s column: The action toward the end of the campaign, in terms of spending and appearances by the candidates and their surrogates, has been in traditionally blue states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Early and absentee voting totals in most swing states, particularly in the specific areas of those swing states he’s counting on the most, point to a shift away from Obama compared to his totals in 2008. Seven of the 10 swing states according to RCP have elected GOP governors since 2008, and an eighth (North Carolina) is expected to do so Tuesday.
In short, the numbers are what they are — but anyone looking for reasons not to believe the poll numbers can find plenty of them.
My head tells me Obama will be re-elected. My gut tells me this hasn’t looked like the kind of campaign an incumbent wins.
My gut tells me the surge Obama has seen in national polls during the past week comes from voters he wasn’t going to lose to Romney, but could have lost to apathy, who will show up and cast ballots for him — but mostly in states he was going to win anyway. My gut tells me we might be seeing a repeat of 2000, when it looked like the Democrat would win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote, only for the scenario to flip in the final days.
My gut tells me Romney picks up North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Colorado and at least one of Michigan/Ohio/Pennsylvania — and will become the 45th president of the United States.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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487 comments Add your comment
Jane
November 5th, 2012
10:17 pm
Why do liberals hate rich people?
JamVet
November 5th, 2012
10:19 pm
Why does Jane hate liberals?
Jane
November 5th, 2012
10:38 pm
I dont hate liberals. Just do not understand how they think. If Obama is relected the national debt is surely to comtinue to go up and up. How do Obama supporters think this money is going to be paid back? Obama believes he can solve the problem by raising taxes on the rich but that will not even start to pay what he is spending. Obama is going to bankrupt this country if he hasnt already.
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
10:42 pm
Jane
November 5th, 2012
10:38 pm
I dont hate liberals. Just do not understand how they think. If Obama is relected the national debt is surely to comtinue to go up and up.
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Why? We have already put those two wars you Republicans put on credit card in the bill pile and are paying for them. Obama didn’t start any more. We have already put that unfunded drug mandate that Bush didn’t pay for on the books and are paying for it. We ARE paying off Bush’s mistakes and aren’t adding new ones. What is so hard for your tiny little mind to understand?
iggy
November 5th, 2012
10:43 pm
” Obama is going to bankrupt this country if he hasnt already.”
Thats the intent. “Tear out the bottom, then the entire house crashes”
MarkV
November 5th, 2012
10:44 pm
“Just do not understand how they think. If Obama is relected the national debt is surely to comtinue to go up and up.”
Apparently it is easier to understand Romney’s plan to cut taxes 20%, thus losing 4.8 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years, and add to that additional trillions of unnecessary defense spending, and not have the national debt go up and up.
Eleanor Eisenberg
November 5th, 2012
10:45 pm
I hope you’re right, Kyle…but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
All the early voting has been real heavy this year, and the great majority has been because the Democratic Party (and Black churches, in many areas) have made real pushes to get Democratic voters to the polls. (That’s one reason there has been so many lawsuits demanding early voting…gives them time to get more of their voters to cast votes.)
Also, Hurricane Sandy was a huge swing in the momentum. President Obama got to campaign by just doing his job…all the while claiming NOT to be campaigning. That’s one huge advantage of being the incumbemt…remember Bush at Ground Zero? Plus, that immediately transformed all FEMA money into Obama campaign funds.
And I think this is going to be one election where the Electoral College actually helps the Democrats. I think that Obama is going to carry a few key states by razor-thin margins, and the “winner take all” system will help him. If all states used the “congressional district aportionment” system for casting electoral votes (like Nebrasks and Maine), no election so far would have been different, although the final totals would have been slightly different. But this election might well be the first one that the “winner take all” system for electoral votes makes a huge difference.
md
November 5th, 2012
10:45 pm
One has to like the very first post on this topic……if the other side wins, it’s because they cheated.
I suspect we will hear quite a bit of that regardless of which side wins, but it sure didn’t strike me as being full of confidence……
My boo
November 5th, 2012
10:50 pm
Community organizer 2, Raving lunatics 0
Jane
November 5th, 2012
10:58 pm
Judging by the answers I got to the question about how Liberals think, yall dont know why ur voting for Obama other than the fact he will better than the alternative. Yall cant tell me the reasons why ur voting for Obama, just why ur not voting for Romney.
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:04 pm
ane
November 5th, 2012
10:58 pm
Judging by the answers I got to the question about how Liberals think, yall dont know why ur voting for Obama other than the fact he will better than the alternative. Yall cant tell me the reasons why ur voting for Obama, just why ur not voting for Romney.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I CAN tell you how to spell the word *you’re*n if you ask me nicely.
Jane
November 5th, 2012
11:07 pm
And by the way, I not a Republican. I am a registered Democrat and voted for Obama 4 years ago but just cant see why anybody would want to put Obama back in the White House after the last 4 years. He is a joke.
iggy
November 5th, 2012
11:08 pm
Heres how liberals think.
Address the symptom of the problem by tossing more dollars at it. Not solve the problem.
We are all good, we are all the same, we all should have the same house, auto, health insurance, clothes etc.
Damn the USA and its constitution for surrender to the UN.
Those are just a few…
Sick of Progs
November 5th, 2012
11:18 pm
My boo
November 5th, 2012
10:50 pm
Community organizer 2, Raving lunatics 0
Marxist Commie 0, Sensible people 2
Master (de)Bater
November 5th, 2012
11:19 pm
Fred @ 10:42 pm
“Jane
November 5th, 2012
10:38 pm
I dont hate liberals. Just do not understand how they think. If Obama is relected the national debt is surely to comtinue to go up and up.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why? We have already put those two wars you Republicans put on credit card in the bill pile and are paying for them. Obama didn’t start any more. We have already put that unfunded drug mandate that Bush didn’t pay for on the books and are paying for it. We ARE paying off Bush’s mistakes and aren’t adding new ones. What is so hard for your tiny little mind to understand?”
See, and what’s amazing, Fred, is that despite all that stuff being arguably true, yet Obama STILL spent more, as if THAT would solve the spending problem? Not only does your response not answer Jane’s question, it actually also validates her point. Well done!
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:21 pm
Jane
November 5th, 2012
11:07 pm
And by the way, I not a Republican. I am a registered Democrat and voted for Obama 4 years ago but just cant see why anybody would want to put Obama back in the White House after the last 4 years. He is a joke.
+++++++++++++++++
RIGHT……………………….
What State do you live in? You aren’t a sock puppet lol you are a pantyhose puppet. Apparently one with an airless crotch…….
ODD OWL
November 5th, 2012
11:23 pm
If non rich Americans wish to have a safe, happy and prosperous future, they should vote Democrat and join a Union… Give the Democrats the tools they need to repair what the Republicans have screwed up… The Democrats need a huge majority in the House, a filibuster proof super majority in the Senate and re-elect President Obama in a historic landslide… Share the wealth, tax the rich, pay down the debt…
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:24 pm
See, and what’s amazing, Fred, is that despite all that stuff being arguably true, yet Obama STILL spent more, as if THAT would solve the spending problem? Not only does your response not answer Jane’s question, it actually also validates her point. Well done!
And here we see the talk radio indoctrinated mind. The part of your mind that WANTS to be free tells you the truth, thta what Isaid was true. But then the dumbass part kicks in. Somehow paying Bush’s debts make them Obama’s.
Really? Were you sober when you wrote that? Please tell me you weren’t. I’d much rather think you are drunk than know you are stupid……..
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:25 pm
Come on guy’s He is backed by President Clinton & General Colin Powell what more doo you Want !!!!!!!!!!!!
Master (de)Bater
November 5th, 2012
11:25 pm
MarkV @ 10:44 pm
“Apparently it is easier to understand Romney’s plan to cut taxes 20%, thus losing 4.8 trillion in tax revenue over 10 years, and add to that additional trillions of unnecessary defense spending, and not have the national debt go up and up.”
Uh, cutting taxes does NOT necessarily cause loss of tax revenue, especially if incomes increase to make up for the lower rates. History also proves this time and again, yet you make statements ignoring its repeated lessons.
Could you cite the source quoting Mitt Romney saying he will raise military spending in the trillions of dollars, please.
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:27 pm
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:25 pm
Come on guy’s He is backed by President Clinton & General Colin Powell what more doo you Want !!!!!!!!!!!!
++++++++++++++++++++
Lucidity from those who post?
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:31 pm
Do U Hard headed RE_____DS Remember wat they Told President Clinton in the same situation!!!!!! And do u hard heade RE____DS Remember how prosperous the economie got!!!! Need I say More!!!!!!!
Master (de)Bater
November 5th, 2012
11:34 pm
“Somehow paying Bush’s debts make them Obama’s.”
Since that was the only rational thing you said, I’ll quote the worthy part.
If ALL Mr. Obama did was pay Bush’s debts, then I’d say you were right, but that is NOT the case, and you know it! Stop ignoring all the stuff–Obamacare being the one you can’t ignore, because it is his trophy legislation–that works against your argument, because that’s the only way you can continue without it collapsing on itself.
If Jane was wrong, then why is the DEFICIT (not the debt) MUCH higher than it was? If he was any good, at least the deficit would be ROUGHLY close to what it was. It is not, and you can’t just blame Bush for that without closing your eyes to truth some.
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:34 pm
HEY Fred Call Me in 4 Years and Thank Me !!!!!!
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:37 pm
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:34 pm
HEY Fred Call Me in 4 Years and Thank Me !!!!!!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thank you for what? For being an insipid little asshat? Why would I think you for that? Or do you mean thank you for dumbing down America? No need to do that, I see a bunch of folks like you who can’t communicate using written English that think they are cool. I mostly see them posting on Facebook from their jobs at McDonald s………
ODD OWL
November 5th, 2012
11:41 pm
Republican debt = $11 trillion dollars, plus $500 billion a year interest x 4 years = $13 trillion dollars Republican debt… President Obama borrowed $3 trillion dollars for TARP, stimulus, auto bailout, unemployment insurance, food stamps…. Any charges that President Obama ran up a huge debt are bogus and based on ignorance and bias… The President has actually paid down the debt by $1 trillion dollars and reduced the yearly deficit by $300 billion dollars… Arrogance is ignorance matured…
ATLien
November 5th, 2012
11:43 pm
Nate silver 91% chance of Obama reelection. Lots of number crunching he was pretty accurate in 2008 and 2010. His methodology is quite solid.
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:44 pm
So u Think Romney is the SOLUTION !!!!
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:47 pm
ODD OWL
November 5th, 2012
11:41 pm
Republican debt = $11 trillion dollars, plus $500 billion a year interest x 4 years = $13 trillion dollars Republican debt… President Obama borrowed $3 trillion dollars for TARP, stimulus, auto bailout, unemployment insurance, food stamps…. Any charges that President Obama ran up a huge debt are bogus and based on ignorance and bias… The President has actually paid down the debt by $1 trillion dollars and reduced the yearly deficit by $300 billion dollars… Arrogance is ignorance matured…
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
LOL Now I see why you go by Odd Owl. That statement above is definitely “odd.” Can you show any proof that President Obama paid down the debt by 1 trillion and cut the deficit by 300 million? Cause quite frankly girlfriend, all THAT is news to me………….
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:49 pm
Hey RE____ard FRed It’ s Spelled Thank Not Think !!! So Who Can’t Spell or Communicate Now!! And by the way i own Mcdonalds Stocks and they keep on climbing !!!
Fred ™
November 5th, 2012
11:52 pm
Yeah Richie, I mean Richi, you da man. U so kool. U b da b3st k00l dude in this jolnt. ur the best 4 the c4teg0ry of asshats.
Presidential prediction: The candidate who defies history and wins will be . . . – Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) | Recent Tv News
November 5th, 2012
11:53 pm
[...] Presidential prediction: The candidate who defies history and wins will be . . . 4:15 pm November 5, 2012, by Kyle Wingfield. History and the numbers say Barack Obama will be re-elected tomorrow. History and the intangibles suggest Mitt Romney will …Deseret NewsPresidential prediction: The candidate who defies history and wins will be . . .Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)Presidential prediction: The candidate who defies history and wins will be . . . 4:15 pm November 5, 2012, by Kyle Wingfield. History and the numbers say Barack Obama will be re-elected tomorrow. History and the intangibles suggest Mitt Romney will …10 of the closest presidential elections in United States historyDeseret NewsWhy the 2012 election is the closest in recent historyConstitution Daily (blog)all 6,979 news articles » Go to Source [...]
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:55 pm
Odd Owl U r On my Christmas LIst !!!!
Liz
November 5th, 2012
11:57 pm
What ever happens tomorrow, I hope you are not going to say you had it right, tonight, the evening before the election. I don’t think I have seen anything so well written, trying to have it both ways.
Richi Rich
November 5th, 2012
11:57 pm
Is Asshats A Redneck Thing !!!!
Fred ™
November 6th, 2012
12:00 am
No Richi, it’s a computer thing. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.
Computers B different than texting…………..
Fred ™
November 6th, 2012
12:02 am
Thyme 4 u 2 call victory Richi, I’m going 2 b3d.
iggy
November 6th, 2012
12:02 am
“Share the wealth, tax the rich…”
Straight communism and no doubt from the likes of Lowery, Bookman, Reid, Jackson, Spelman, Rev Wright, Pelosi etc…
Patty
November 6th, 2012
12:04 am
You know, I hate all the crap being flung between both parties. Obama did this; Romney said that. What happened to civil disagreement; the art of respecting each other enough to agree to disagree. Libs screaming at the conservatives; Conservatives screaming right back. Voting is a respected right, not a Falcon’s football game!
Before people start flinging accusations back and forth, let me just make it simple–both sides(Repubs and Demos) are at fault. There’s a great many intelligent people on both sides–as well as a great deal of stupidity and arrogance.
JKL2
November 6th, 2012
12:04 am
richi rich- So u Think Romney is the SOLUTION !!!!
No, but my cat’s display more leadership ability than obama. I would say barack would come in fourth if you rated the obama family on leadership ability.
You already have a joke in your hand, we don’t need one in the White House.
Chris Salzmann
November 6th, 2012
12:08 am
The bottom line is, who would you like to be going into this election? Obama or Romney? Who has more paths to victory? If you can answer that truthfully, then you know who’s going to win.
Romney’s campaign is beginning to crack and sounding increasingly desperate. The Jeep ad about jobs going to China was such a blatant lie that Chrysler stepped in to debunk it. Ryan claiming today that Obama threatens “christian values”. Ann Romney is looking more strained than usual.
My prediction is that Obama wins this by at least 280-290 votes. Likely to be some upside to that.
Richi Rich
November 6th, 2012
12:11 am
Patty U Hit it at the heart of it all !!!! U R right we needed leadership at both ends!!! Now The question is who do we go with for the future of our great country !!!!
Richi Rich
November 6th, 2012
12:12 am
Goodnight Fred !!!
Richi Rich
November 6th, 2012
12:18 am
Enter your comments here
Xavera
November 6th, 2012
12:23 am
R’s who might be tempted to sit out today’s election because of (fill in blank) need to remember that the next president likely will have the opportunity to fill two or three Supreme Court vacancies in the next four years. Amazing we didn’t hear more about that during the campaign.
Ty
November 6th, 2012
12:29 am
I think your gut is correct. Finally, America will be on a path to prosperity. Total repudiation of Obama’s social agenda. Mitt Romney, a man of integrity that invisions a path to unite us.
I’m embracing the idea of a business leader sleeping in the Nation’s House.
The liberal ideas sound good in theory, but when pencil meets paper the numbers inevitably never add up. Ask yourself this question: How can we sustain a viable economy if half of the country is paying the way for the other half? Never works! Never!
ODD OWL
November 6th, 2012
1:09 am
The Republicans in the battleground states don’t think that voting is a Constitutional right… The Re-puk-licans in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Penn are making it as hard as possible for Democrats to vote… Haven’t you seen the long lines in these states for early voting ??? P.S. Republican-Independent candidate Gary Johnson is polling about 5% in all the battleground states… Thats bad news for Romney/Ryan…
Uncle Billy
November 6th, 2012
5:43 am
Obama wins a bigger victory than last time. 350+ electoral votes. Polls show he is trust more on the economy and foreign policy than is Romney. Also he is rated as more likable than Romney who has a “plan” which he will not reveal. I never saw how such a person could be nominated, let alone elected.
marko
November 6th, 2012
5:57 am
President Obama wants to slow the rise of the oceans was the punch line that left them laughing at the republican convention. In the days leading up to the election Mitt was closing fast. Then came Sandy. It’s funny to me that the party that claims to be so holier than thou doesn’t recognize an act of god when they see one. Not only did the storm stop Mitt’s momentum, it reversed it. Polls are good when they tell you what you want to hear, and evidently they’re lies from the pit of hell when they don’t.
One factor that could skew the polling would be an over sampling of land lines, and a corresponding under sampling of cell phones. Let’s see who has land lines? Could it be old white People? Cell phones? That would tend to be the not so old and not so white. I would think that polling inconsistences, if they exist, would tend to favor the president. However, if voters in democratic districts should suddenly find themselves attacked by hordes of locust I’ll be forced to concede that I was wrong.
Rightwing Troll
November 6th, 2012
6:22 am
Speaking of pencil and paper, did anybody ever manage to reconcile all of Mittens numbers and how he could actually pull it off?