Republicans are trying to keep a stiff upper lip but they tried that four years ago with hilarious results. Here’s my prediction. Obama will win in every state where he is ahead in the average of polls. Florida and North Carolina will be so close that they may require a recount, but no one will care because Obama will have won 303 electoral votes even without them. The shenanigans in Florida make me nervous because the polls are so close that any little bit of suppression could flip the state. I am going to tentatively call it for Obama. I have no idea if we can win North Carolina, but I will refrain from calling it for the president. So, end result is 332-206.
The only other state that worries me is Colorado. What are your predictions?
Colorado should be fine – we’re up by 2 in the Denver Post poll and we’ve outperformed state polls in recent history due primarily to increases in voter turnout.
I think Nevada is fine too … one of the pool writers traveling with Romney who is clearly in the tank for Romney wrote an article on Sunday about how close it all was but let slip that Romney’s team had already written off Nevada.
I think VA will be fine too since there is a decent lead and no massive vote suppression. I worry about lily white IA and NH, especially as NH with it’s ludicrous “independent” streak could do something really stupid like they did with Bush/Gore, and by an equally tiny margin.
FL and NC I’ve written off, but hope to be surprised. I’m hopeful OH has a margin safe enough to avoid a recount nightmare. PA, MI, and MN are fine. They probably pull it off in WI as well given that the recall was so close.
I sat in my favorite local coffee house today while awaiting car repairs and listed to the local wingnut morning coffee groups blather on. What was notable to me was that they started with the false bravado about Romney winning but clearly everyone was on edge … eventually the whole middle section of this large coffee house was talking about what if they can get a tie in the EC what would happen.
Meanwhile, while waiting for the car I was tortured with Fucked Noise for about 15 minutes. They spent that entire time talking (this was a news report, not a “talk show”) about fears of massive voter fraud in Ohio. One by one the GOP officials in Ohio expressed their fears on camera, including the Cuyogha County (Cleveland) election leader (assume that is an appointed position as no wingnut could win that by vote in that county). All bullshit, no balance, not one comment about never having detected a single vote fraud. And nothing about vote suppression. Fox is pure, unadulterated evil.
if Obama wins without FL, I won’t be truly happy unless the citizens of FL deliver a hearty middle finger to Rick Scott and the tea-party FL legislature for trying and failing to disenfranchise Dem and minority voters.
How’s this for the law of unintended consequences: would people leaning Obama but un-enthused be willing to stand in line for 8 hours if they thought the gov’t was doing its best to maintain their right to vote? How many people are standing in line and voting just to show that they can?
Kudos on having the grits to listen to the aholes.
Anybody see Fnews report that McCain’s strategist Steve Schmidt just said “I think that all of this stuff that has transpired over the last two years is in search of a solution to a problem, voting fraud, that doesn’t really exist when you look deeply at the question,” and
“It’s part of the mythology now in the Republican Party that there’s widespread voter fraud across the country. In fact, there’s not.”?
Why do I even bother asking?
Ohio doesn’t worry you with the potential for shenanigans? I’m here in Larimer County, Colorado, which is supposedly one of those swing districts. Obama has been in state a lot during the past several months and the organization seem strong and motivated. Basically, downtown Fort Collins is strong for Obama (judging from the street signs) while the surrounding rural area, particularly between Fort Collins and Denver, and toward Wyoming, is Romney country. Everywhere else is mixed. There’s my amateur analysis.
Similar situation in Colorado Springs, though the progressive forces downtown aren’t enough to counter the surrounding areas.
There are two Colorado House districts in the Springs that are Democratic. 18 is Colorado College and the old Colorado City – as an outsider might guess these are the trendy, walkable areas with lots of interesting shops and local flavor. 17 is the southern part of the city proper, excluding the upper middle class Broadmoor area, and is the poorest part of town.
The Democratic Party is expecting massive GOP vote disruption in these districts and is ready for the fight.
Now, oddly enough, NO ONE on the Democratic side is planning a similar disruption in a GOP district. But, if one did occur I lay 1000-to-1 odds that the network news will give that as much coverage as all the GOP voter rights violations nationwide put together.
I should have known that, but in any case, would have guessed that the area from CC to old Colorado is Democratic. Lived there last year. Are you in the Springs? Maybe I know you.
Most likely sceniaro:
294 EVs (narrowly loses CO, FL)
53 Senate Dems
198 House Dems
Second most likely scenario:
357 EVs (sweep+NC)
55 Senate Dems
208 House Dems
Either our voters come out or they don’t.
Thanks to Booman and the gang for all your thoughtful commentary during the election, now lets GOTMFV!
No offense, but I “tentatively” call for a Vikings win before every game. My son gets really peeved with me after every loss. I explain that my prediction was tentative so I get a pass.
If vote tallies turn out to be as close as predicted, then i predict that all these recent small issues that folks think won’t matter, like Christie & the storm and the Dickhead’s jeeps-to-china self-mutilation, to name two, will in fact be decisive.
When you’ve finely balanced your beam-balance scale, you only need to blow on one side to make it move.
Agreed on all points. Last PPP poll has Obama up +6 in Colorado, so less worried there. Slightly more optimistic on NC because there appears to be no voter suppression there. The big imponderable is the level of the white vote Obama gets. If he achieves 40%, he could win by up to 6%.
with good support levels from white women, that doesn’t seem to me to be unattainable, but what do I know? I’m a yurpian…
I’ve got it 303-235, with Mitt winning NC and Florida in a typical Florida-style electoral heist.
I predict that the nets will call it for Obama at 11 pm EST, same as in 2008.
is FL, NC and some deeply red state that went under the radar because it was underpolled because of an unexpected Latino or Amer. Indian turnout (e.g.: AZ or ND). How can the GOP ever win another national election if they continue to hate the growing non-white percentage of the population. Lindsay Graham sees the writing on the wall, do other GOP’ers?
11 EST? Heck, that won’t even give me an excuse to show up late for work on Wednesday. Can’t we push it to 1 or 2 AM?
Colorado has a very sharp urban/rural divide. When turnout is high, the plus over normal comes from the cities: Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins, Pueblo, and Colorado Springs. Of those, only the Springs tilts Republican.
When I voted at an early voting center in Denver on Friday, there were long lines and there was lots of chatter about the importance of the election. My amateur analysis says this heralds a near-record voter turnout with the advantage to the president.
I agree with GreenCaboose that Colorado will be OK for Obama. If you want to follow the Colorado count, this blog provides a guide to bellwether counties and swing counties to watch for a trend.
The same blog has election guides and details of counties to watch for all nine swing states, accessible here.
I predict bomb threats made to polling stations in heavily Democratic swing state wards that will shut them down for hours.
How many agencies would have a piece of them. That would be the opening salvo of a very tumultuous time.
The shutdown of a polling station has already happened during early voting in Florida:
http://www.examiner.com/article/bomb-squad-called-to-florida-polling-station-two-packages-detonated
Dealing with the two suspicious packages shut down voting for four hours.
I expect tumult in a lot of places tomorrow, much of it from Republican poll watchers trying to block or intimidate Democratic voters from voting.
my prediction.
not very original, i’m afraid. but with so much data this year every prediction is going to be either crazy or boring.
OK, call me the crazy foreigner, but I’m predicting an Obama win margin of 4-6% in the popular vote, 347 EV’s, a net gain in the Senate, and a very narrow win in the house.
I have zero polling data to back this up, and my main contact with the USA is this blog. So let me just say that I have an abiding faith in the good sense of the US people.
As Winston Churchill once said, “the Americans can be counted on to do the right thing – having exhausted all of the alternatives first…”
You’re adorable.
From your keyboard to God’s ears…
Oh, I hope I hope I hope …..
Look, if the Dems DO get a House win, even by 1 vote, the path is clear. We Democrats will immediately embark on a Filibuster Reform influence campaign the likes of which have not been seen since the Civil Rights era.
Let’s be honest with ourselves … if Obama, together with the majority (not supermajority) of the Senate, and majority of the House had enacted what they agreed on in the first half of 2009 the economy would be booming, the benefits of Obamacare would already be applies instead of some waiting for 2014, and this election would be a foregone landslide for the Dems. It was the Lieberdems in the Senate who slowed the economic recovery and overcompromised on, well, everything else. And it was the non-Lieberdems who were too fucking cowardly to “reform” the filibuster in 2009 when all this was basically obvious to anyone who’d been watching the Gingrich-Rove era.
I can claim to be a crazy foreigner, too, and I’m going for Obama 332 – Romney 206. Not based on craziness but the science of the polls and a hunch that the President might just carry Florida because he seems to be finishing strongly in both Florida and national polls.
Best wishes to all you Americans. You really don’t deserve Mitt Romney, despite all your faults 🙂
My prediction is that if Obama wins, the republicans will not accept him as the legitimate president, they will obstruct everything he attempts to do, and they impeach him in his third year if they pick up seats in the midterms. Midterms that Obama will not campaign for progressive candidates because it would be uncivil to work to unseat those he is trying to work with.
Obama will attempt to work with them on budget issues, which means all budget issues will start where republicans want them, but will still be rejected. In the end, Obama will sell my future to them….for nothing in return.
They will hate him with the power of a thousand suns. Forever. Yet we will end up in the end further to the right than we started.
Utter chaos (as intended) in the Repub Vote Suppression States (FL, OH), with state judges having to respond to various lawsuits to extend voting hours in several counties. Neither state will have results available until very wee hours. Many Obama votes lost due to unendurable lines and provisional ballots (as intended by criminal Repub Guv’nor Scott and OH Repub tool Hustad)
Obama loses IA, wins VA (no vote supression), CO, NV.
Obama declared prez with 279 electoral votes, very late night for the nation.
Wild card: WI–a state where Repubs passed vote supression but whose courts apparently blocked its implementation for this election. Repubs’ suppression plan is to challenge voters and demand ID, so courts may have to get involved there as well. If so, no results likely available next day, and Obama will sit at 269 EV, awaiting resolution of other two Repub vote supression states (RVSSs).
No rational person will ever accept final “Rmoney wins” results in Repub Vote Supression States whenever announced. In any event, Repub supression goal is obviously to either throw election to Rmoney or to have a cloud hang over Obama’s re-election, challenge his legitimacy from Day One of second term, to lay groundwork for planned future impeachment.
Obama wins Colorado. The breakdown of Independents (enormous voting block) there leans democratic.
Florida is a true toss-up. So either Obama gets 303 or 332. I’ll go with 303 just to be conservative.
I am sick of the word “shenanigans”. The rotten treasonous Repiglickin’ fraudsters need to be sent to prison.
man. I have no real predictions, I just want us to win and by a comfortable enough margin to piss off Scarborough, Halperin, Noonan, Chuck Todd & all the media idiots who were more interested in the horse race than reporting the truth about Romney and Ryan’s lies?
anyway, looks like Obama’s got Christie’s vote locked up!
Obama Connected Bruce Springsteen, Chris Christie During Call From Air ForceOne
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-connected-bruce-springsteen-chris-christie-during-
call
y’all think Christie cried like a Lil….
Very interesting predictions and great info on CO from our Coloradans!
One final thing to keep in mind—PA was also a Repub Vote Suppression State, with PA Repubs famously boasting that their new vote suppression law would deliver the state for the Bishop. Perhaps this is a reason for Rmoney’s continued “interest” in the state, one can’t just throw away a huge investment in intentional vote suppression!
The PA Supreme Court ultimately came down largely against implementing the Repub vote suppression law in this election, but IIRC the PA trial judge’s final order idiotically allowed election officials to demand photo ID of voters, but that voters didn’t have to comply. So what’s the story?
This is another insane recipe for possible delay at the polls, and I’m wondering what the predictions are for how voting in PA will likely go under this unprecedented nonsense. Again, any problems in PA voting tomorrow can be laid directly at the Repubs’ door–their goal obviously was to suppress the PA vote, just as they are doing in FL and OH. But then, our patriotic Repubs, led by KKKarl Rover, are quite proud of the chaos they have intentionally sown in the nation’s voting tomorrow.
Frankly, Hitler’s bownshirted goons were not much worse or more anti-democratic than our fine Repubs of today…that’s “conservatism”!
I don’t know about the rest of the nation, but here in MA my grandson’s Father #1 is taking him to vote a straight (haha pun intended) ticket at 7AM.
Father #2 will pick him up at lunch to vote a 2nd time.
Grandmother will pick him up from school to vote a 3rd time at about 4pm.
Grandfather (me) will get there about 6PM to vote a 4th time.
As my mother told me when I was 12:
“Friends and relatives in the Court House. Vote Early and often”.
Get’em started early … and often.
Same map I had back in February: every state but Indiana and North Carolina. I’m tempted to go the full mile and declare NC to Obama too, but his margin was so small then that I barely put it in his column last time. This cycle’s harder to tell. Last election I had the exact electoral margin, as I switched MO to McCain’s column the night before (including Nebraska’s). I doubt I’ll be as accurate this time.
Also, on Colorado, our minds are alike. That state has been bugging me since September.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21840100/i-voted-sticker-arapahoe-county-mail-may-rub?sour
ce=pkg
You probably have heard that Republicans lead Democrats in early voting in Colorado, but that Colorado OFA is confident that they are doing great in early voting. This article describes a sample of actual ballots cast that is small statistically but suggests that OFA may be onto something.
This happen in Arapahoe “County where 104,896 active voters are Democrats, 99,866 are Republican and 100,164 are unaffiliated. It has swung between being Democratic and Republican. And its voters tend to turn out in big numbers.” An unusual mail-in ballot problem caused the county clerk to open and count 100 ballots at random in the presence of officials from the parties. “County staffers pulled out 100 ballots that had already been returned and had the party officials tabulate the votes by hand. In this purely randomly selected stack of ballots, 61 votes were for President Barack Obama, 37 for Mitt Romney and three for Libertarian Gary Johnson.”
My long-ago undergraduate degree was in Math/Government, so I know that the confidence interval for a sample of 100 is pretty wide. However, this is a case where the Democratic candidate got 65% more votes than the GOP candidate in a random sample in a county where more GOP voters have turned in early ballots. Even with that small a sample the chance that Romney is getting more of the early votes in that county is infinitesimal. I’ve actually volunteered as a vote counter in a number of local elections and my experience is that while there may be short streaks of votes for one candidate or another during the counting, in groups of 100 the variation is as you would expect – for each group of 100 votes a candidate will get within +/- 5 votes of that candidate’s mean percentage for the total vote count.
Perhaps the sample was not truly random, despite what the county clerk said, so the voting sample was skewed. Romney’s team can hope for that. But add that to a long list of data that Romney needs to be skewed to win this thing.
I can’t really see Obama getting over 50% in the popular vote. I expect a squeaker PV win over Romney 49.5-48.5 with the remainder going to third parties.
That could be – 2% for the 3rd parties is probably a most-likely estimation.
However, a 1% popular vote margin is probably Obama’s floor, based on recent polling. By that I mean not just the national polls themselves but also the in-depth polls that focus on the “undecideds” – whether it’s Gallup, Pew, or YouGov everything there suggests that those still reporting as undecideds in the polls are likely to break for Obama – anything from 55-45 (low estimate) to 3:1 (high estimate). Obama has much more positive ratings among that group than Romney does.
I, too, used to believe in the Incumbent Rule, whereby undecideds break for the challenger. I, too, was burned by this belief in 2004. Yes, we know that the GOP stole Ohio that year and thus the electoral college, but sadly Bush did get the majority of the vote nationally. Lots of study on the Incumbent Rule now suggests either that it no longer is relevant due to modern campaigns or it never existed – it was a red herring based in incomplete polling data (such as the 1976 and 1980 Presidential elections).
While we’re mentioning that, if you find anyone poring over past data and getting worried about the Democratic share of the vote being overstated based on, say, 1968, 1980, 1992, or 1996 – forget it. All 4 of those elections had legitimate 3rd party challenges who commanded over 5% of the vote. Polling in those races is a massively different task, made much more complex because SOME of the people who report a preference for the 3rd party candidate will nonetheless vote for one of the two major party candidates in the voting booth. Look at the two party elections with more emphasis on the recent ones – 2004, 2000, 1988, 1984, 1976, 1972. In those the Democrat tended to have his share understated more often than not.
I’m going to go with 303 Obama – 235 Romney, which is a pretty lame prediction, given that it is basically the same as Sam Wang, who got it on the money last time.
Florida is a toss-up, but I’m going to give it to Romney, on the basis that (i) he is oh-so-slightly ahead in the polling averages, (ii) having a corrupt governor in your corner has got to count for something.
Colorado and Virginia are close, but Obama is ahead in all recent polls in Colorado, and all polls except Ras in Virginia, so I’m guessing he pulls both of them out.
Presumably there will be at least one big surprise, which could go in Obama’s favor, or against. I’d like it to be Obama winning North Carolina against the odds, but it might be something unpleasant like Romney winning Iowa and/or New Hampshire.
I have to agree. I looked at the map independently, but of course with a detailed familiarity with the polls, and came to the same conclusion. Of the “contested” states these go to Obama: NV, CO, IA, MN, WI, MI, OH, PA, NH, VA. Seems like a lot but then he’s ahead in a lot of states. These go to the pathological liars: FL, NC.
My most likely prediction looks like Nate Silver’s model of states, not necessarily the estimated EV.
There will be surprises. I’ll cover the upside ones: FL, NC, IN, AZ — one or more of these if lightning strikes.
The downsides: VA, CO, NH, NV, IA if the polls are over-optimistic plus FL, OH, PA if the chicanery works.
In the Senate, I think the big story will be Carmona (crosses fingers) unless it is overshadowed by a “Kerrey comeback”. Tester’s race will be the nail-biter.
In the House, Bachmann is gone, Walsh is gone, Kissell and McIntyre are gone, Issa sweats it for the first time as does Cantor.
Colorado doesn’t worry me.
I’m just going to believe that there are enough people in this country who understand what happens if there is a President Romney, that they will get their asses to the polls.
297-241, Obama.
303-235: 2008 map less IN, NC, FL and NE-2. I feel confident about VA, and increasingly, CO. Nate’s model now has the president winning FL: I think it could happen, but I’d rather not count on it and be pleasantly surprised. It would make for a shorter night.
Holy crap you people are confident. Makes me feel good, but I can’t help but worry.
.
But you do it so well! ;o)
Looks like I called the Electoral College exactly, missed the Senate by one (maybe) and badly overestimated our performance in the House.
,
with great victory for America. Thanking all women and minorities, inclusief the minority of white males who chose wisely. Join the bunch …
My prediction was 303 for Obama with Florida going to Romney.
A great night. I joined a “Who will be President” celebration with the US Ambassador, diplomats, business sponsors and [us] majority of Obama supporters. Decision was at 05:15am local time, just before breakfast after a long night.
Work to be done, Obama can do the job he was voted in to do, change the American landscape. Some business and banking people will see a different Obama the next four years. Looking forward how the fiscal cliff will be tackled by Obama and Congress, a litmus test real soon. Telling the multi-millionaires and billionaires, money stashed away in foreign financial vehicles and tax have is not productive for the US economy and doesn’t produce jobs!
The Israeli hardliners will notice a new approach of US policy towards the Middle-East too. Netanyahu knows it! Romney – Adelson – Netanyahu have gone bust. In the Netherlands the recent election created a major shift in the political landscape, Likud FM Uri Rosenthal won’t return. Great news.