September 26, 2012
Obama to win?
Last week I stated, “this writer will currently call ‘Obama to win down the home stretch.’” A reader then referred me to an electoral vote tracking web site that underscores the probability of Obama’s re-election.
Polls that track the popular vote are misleading because it isn’t the popular vote who wins the election: It is the Electoral vote. Between the 50 states, a candidate must win a total of 270 electoral votes to win. Most states give 100 percent of their electoral votes to the candidate with the highest popular vote, rather than sharing them between two candidates.
California, for instance, has 55 electoral votes at stake. If a candidate receives 50.01 percent of the popular vote, he gets all 55 votes. Will Obama win California? Absolutely! Other large Democrat states include Michigan (16), New York (29), Pennsylvania (20) and Ohio (18).
You can see in the chart above that Obama far exceeds Romney, and the 270 needed to win, in potential electoral votes. Furthermore, Obama slipped below the 270 line only once for a single week in June just after Romney cinched the GOP nomination. Thereafter, Obama has been riding high.
The real question now is, can Romney do anything to unseat Obama’s electoral votes by sweeping states that have been traditionally Democrat? First, note the electoral votes that he has lost since early June. Secondly, note that he has made zero progress since the GOP Convention. A “winner” would be experiencing some measure of upticks over the last four months, but Romney is no winner thus far.
Thus, I rest my case again: It will be “Obama to win down the home stretch.”
It is currently probable that the House of Representatives will remain a Republican majority. It is possible (albeit improbable) that the Senate could gain a Republican majority. A GOP majority in both chambers would dull the effectiveness of another Obama term, but it would not change his determination to fundamentally change America.
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