I created a very simplistic and somewhat unrealistic model to see what would happen if just slightly over one out of every 20 voters who voted for McCain winds up voting for Obama this November. I decided to see what would happen if Obama improved his take of the vote from 53% to 59%.
Update [2012-2-17 10:19:59 by BooMan]: To clear up the math here, this would actually be an electorate where 6% of the vote was made up of voters who switch from R in 2008 to D in 2012. Or any other permutation adding up to 6%.
In an effort to supply some realism, I acknowledged the law of diminishing returns and assumed that it would easier for Obama to pick up votes in red states than in blue states, where he had already come close to maxing out his support. So, I simply gave Obama an added 5% of the vote in the blue states and then gave him a 7% boost in the red states. Obviously, this model is too simplistic to take account of McCain and Palin’s advantages in Arizona and Alaska or to take account of Romney’s advantage (should he be the nominee) in states like Utah and Wyoming. But it should come close to averaging out. Now, here’s what I discovered:
Obama would win 10 states that he lost in 2008. Here they are:
Arizona 52/47
Georgia 54/45
Mississippi 50/49
Missouri 56/42
Montana 54/43
North Dakota 54/44
South Carolina 52/47
South Dakota 52/46
Texas 51/49
West Virginia 50/49
This translates to a 462-76 win in the Electoral College. Here are the only Electoral College results in the modern era that were more lopsided: FDR 1932 (472 EV), FDR 1936 (523 EV), LBJ 1964 (486 EV), Nixon 1972 (520 EV), Reagan 1980 (489 EV), Reagan 1984 (525 EV).
Here are the contests Obama would win with more than 70% of the vote: Washington DC, Hawaii, and Vermont.
Here are the states that Obama would win with more than 60% of the vote: California (66%), Connecticut (66%), Delaware (67%), Illinois (67%), Maine 63%, Maryland (67%), Massachusetts (69%), Michigan (62%), Nevada (60%), New Jersey (62%), New Mexico (62%), New York (68%), Oregon (62%), Pennsylvania (60%), Rhode Island (68%), Washington (63%), Wisconsin (61%).
Obama would barely lose (by less than 3%) Kansas, Nebraska, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee.
In this scenario, Obama would pull roughly 59% of the popular vote. That’s what Ronald Reagan accomplished in 1984. Reagan won 49 states that year. In my scenario, Obama would still only win 38 states.
Here are the states Obama would still lose under my model: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming.
I’ll welcome critiques of the model, as well as opinions about how the map will differ between Romney and Santorum. Can Obama do better than 59%? I think he can. But it’s only been done a couple of times in American history. Do you know who accomplished it?
What would this mean for the House and the Senate, and for the GOP? I mean, I have them losing Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. If that happens, and it could, it would do something to the GOP.
