The whole damn election probably comes down to Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, again. Why do the rest of us even bother voting?
I gave Romney WI, OH, FL, VA, NC, NH and they end up 269-269 tie ! http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=utB
http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=utI Obama: 280 (v) Romney: 258 I give Romney Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, with Obama OH, PA, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorada, Nevada and Michigan.
Speculation on independents is pointless until the debates. Until then it's all about who buys the best propaganda campaign.
No they don't. Pollsters *poll* outcomes - they see what people are saying they will do. And they give margins of errors because they recognize that their numbers are only one possible estimate of the outcome. While it has some predictive value, the exact number in poll actually is not an attempt to predict the outcome. The fact that a number was hit "dead on" is actually more statistical coincidence than intent. What 538 does is take a bunch of data - polls, historical results, poll biases, etc - and predict the outcome of an upcoming election. The two are totally different methodologies with totally different end goals in mind. 538 will say "candidate X has a 57% chance of winning Florida based on a mix of data we're looking at". A poll will say "our poll of voters shows candidate X getting 53% of the vote, +/-4% and we expect him or her to be in that range 95% of the time." They actually aren't predicting 53% - they are predicting 49-57% in 95% of elections, with that generally centering around 53%.
http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=uxT 269 to 269 Decided by the House of Representatives which votes in Romney. Interesting thing is the map has a VERY real possibility of going this way.
Haha, I was just going to post a similar scenario, but I had IA going Blue and NV going red. Would be interesting to see if it ended up 269-269, maybe that is what the Mayans were talking about?!? If we thought Bush v. Gore was a doozy, a tie would be something else entirely! I'd hope that rather than this race being decided by the special interests and political attack ads that the voters would look at this as a referendum on which way they want to see the country go in the next four years. I highly doubt that is what will happen, but it'd be nice to elevate the national dialog/discourse to a level that we haven't seen in a while. IMO, we need to have that honest talk about a way forward to get our internal house in order so to speak.
So now that the conventions are over and Charlotte pretty much wiped the floor with Tampa, anyone want to recalibrate their predictions?
Right now: http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=wYg This could all change over the next two months.
I thought your map was pretty good at demonstrating a fair best-case scenario for Romney. Until I saw you gave him Iowa. Come on, man. He's not going to win Iowa.
I don't remember what I said before but I'm feeling good about 300+. Nate Silver, who is generally the gold standard on this kind of stuff, is even kinder to Obama according to his high-falutin' predicting machine. He has Obama just over 314.
Everything could change, of course, but this very optimistic scenario could absolutely happen. If all those swing states go his way though I think he'll do even better and repeat in NC as well. It's the only swing state Romney currently leads in and the margin is pretty thin.
Romney wins every state that the latest polls have him leading. Obama wins every state that the polls have him leading except Iowa, where his lead is the smallest. http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=SNv 269-269. It goes to Congress. Edit: Actually, re-checked. New Hampshire is closer than Iowa. This isn't quite as likely as I thought. It would be unlikely for Romney to win Iowa but not New Hampshire. More likely would be 271-267 Obama or 273-265 Romney. Either way, it's going to be close.
