Further Light and Knowledge

Below are the ten states that Nate Silver rates as most in play for the 2012 Presidential election, along with each state's number of electoral votes. This leaves Obama with 221 electoral votes and Romney 191 electoral votes from the other 40 states (and DC!).

Post your prediction for the final electoral vote count with your reasoning and comments. It's fine with me if you want to change your predictions over time.

Enjoy!

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"Now I troll back to my little cave where we no talk about things we no understand..." Malfalda

"Ummmm. Roadkill."

I voted

Ryan:
Virginia (I don't even think this is battleground): It's tacked so far to the right over the past four years that it's like whiplash. I suppose the DC burbs might carry some weight, but they're pretty republican as well (the MD burbs tend to be for Dems).

Ohio: Again, I'm not seeing this is a battleground state at all, but i may be out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Ohio.

North Carolina: There's some angry racist Christian assholes seething in NC, as was brought out in the latest statewide there. I'm thinking Obama doesn't have a chance in hell of carrying NC.

Nevada: Yeah, pretty much a Western "hands off my guns and money" kinda thing. Reid would'e lost his seat in '10 had his opponent not been a complete nutjob.

Obama:
Florida: No way will that state vote for the guy who wants to privatize social security and medicare
Colorado: It's pretty damn conservative, and western colorado is seething with anti-Obama hatred; but there's also a pretty steady progress leftwards in the state as a whole (mass trans, gay rights, etc.). We'll see. I'm calling it for obama, but it's close.
Iowa: Despite the wingnut Christians who make a lot of noise in the state, my experience in Iowa when I lived in teh midwest is that when it comes down to it, most Iowans are pretty solid pragmatists, and they have little patience for liars. I'm calling it Obama.
New Hampshire: It's a pretty evenly divided state party affiliation-wise, but they are old style Republicans, which means their candidate is Obama.
Michigan: Despite the racism and tea party domination of local politics, I think the Ryan budget and Romney's desire to let the auto industry die will ultimately carry the day for Obama
Wisconsin: Polling shows that the refusal to unseat the governer had more to do with the distrust of the recall process than a love of his policies. Wisconsinites seem to be showing a growing concern over the wingnut tea party assholes. I think this will be a close close election, but that it will ultimately swing to Obama.

That's what I see right now. Thoughts?

I agree with Cumom except I gave him Wisconsin. There's a lot of momentum after the recall and a lot of disheartened progressives who just might give up there. (that's the biggest problem with progressives - if they get their hearts broken, they withdraw from the action).

There are also a lot of midwestern farmers and sportsmen who might be totally with Romney/Ryan except that they've seen for themselves firsthand the effects of climate change and are growing impatient with adamant denialists - - the flat earthers of our time.

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- CV Rick
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Virginia and North Carolina are sure to return to the Republican fold. Nevada will probably go to Romney based on the Mormon factor. I think the selection of Ryan and the Walker recall have energized and organized the Right in Wisconsin, and that state is likely to fall to Romney.

I don't think Florida is going for Obama; it has been trending Republican for some time, and Ryan is not the boogeyman to seniors that liberals want to think he is.

Iowa, Colorado, and New Hampshire are all states that could go for Romney as well. In New Hampshire, Romney is well known and he won the Primary. It's the only state in the northeast where he has a real chance. Colorado is probably the least likely to go for him, as it's trending Democratic.

I think the biggest battleground will be Ohio. But Romney can lose that if he picks up enough of these other states.

I give R/R Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, and Nevada.

I think Colorado is becoming more like Missouri, trending Republican. There are just enough Preppers out there to give the state to Romney, if they can come down out of the mountains long enough to find their way to a voting booth. Obama is currently ahead there, but I think it probably ends up in the Romney camp.

Virginia is also a state where Obama currently leads but I think the Ryan pick might help Romney there. The GOP has a stronger GOTV operation in Virginia than the Dems.

North Carolina is such a strange state. But it's hard to see how it goes for Obama this year, unless this thing turns into an electoral landslide (which could happen if Obama can get to and remain above 50% in the polls. Just a couple percentage points in Obama's direction in the national polls will be enough to swing all or nearly all of these swing states into Obama's camp).

Nevada I think has enough Mormons to give Romney the edge.

Ohio is a total tossup in my mind. Right now, I think Obama will squeak it out, based mainly on an issue no one has really focused on just yet: infrastructure. That's a big issue in Ohio, and I think the Obama camp is going to pound the GOP ticket on it because Ryan wants to impose draconian cuts on federal funding of road and bridge construction. Plus, the Ohio Democratic GOTV organization is solid. The GOP is going to saturate the state with ad buys between now and election day, as they know that no Republican has won the Presidency and lost Ohio since, um, well, I think ever. I believe the state is a dead heat right now. One thing Romney has going for him is the massive voter-suppression campaign the GOP has been mounting there (and in Florida as well, with less success, though).

Florida I think will go Obama's way. Ryan will be toxic down there.

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"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com

Well, it's been two months since I answered this poll. I have changed my mind based on intervening events and an avalanche of data that has come in since the summer. I am going to make my Election 2012 prediction right here, right now (while the world wakes up from history). I could wait until Election Eve, but anyone can predict a winner by then. Being able to make a prediction while the polls say the race is a toss-up and before the last two debates is a lot tougher. But I am up to the task. So here goes:

Popular vote:
Obama 49.8%
Romney 48.9%

Electoral College (270 needed to win for Obama; 269 needed to win for Romney)
Obama 303
Romney 235

Here is my map:
http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=IJW

I've got Obama winning Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, and New Hampshire and Romney winning Florida and North Carolina. I feel least confident about Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado, which seem to be the true toss-ups in this race. For info on why I changed my mind about Nevada, see this post by Nate Cohn:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/electionate/108 ... s-chances#

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"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com

I wasn't going to say anything - I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings - but I think Nevada was a territory during the Civil War, no battles occurred even close to Nevada.

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It's good to talk about these things and to sort out the messed up mindfuck we were in.
- SIMS

So what do I win? Looks like it's 303 for Obama with Florida still a toss-up but Obama slightly ahead.

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"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com

Oh . . . I get it now . . . damn . . .

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It's good to talk about these things and to sort out the messed up mindfuck we were in.
- SIMS

I'm very glad to have been wrong about
VA
NV
and OH

But I was right about NC, the only state Obama lost between 08 and 12.

Indiana too, I think.

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He never said it would be worth it; He only said it would be easy.

I have tried for the most part to be a gracious winner, but in this case, as my BIL said the other day, "Screw that. I'm having a nice big slice of Schadenfreude Pie."

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The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller

yup, you are correct.

Some of the analysis about Virginia was interesting. County by county, as always, the population centers went Obama, but also, the counties with universities. That's a huge proportion of the state. For some reason in my head, I always for get there are cities in virginia because, you know, what city is in virginia? lol

By the way, it's hilarious that R/R lose their home states. Ok, Mass is no surprise, but c'mon Ryan, you can't pull an extra 2 or 3 hundred thousand votes in your state?? NH was supposed to be a swing state, and if that was really the case, you'd think Romney would win it with his New England background.

Makes me wonder, what if Romney had picked Rubio? Does that make the difference? In Florida, probably. But Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin? Probably not. NV and CO, probably not either. Perhaps Condi could have made the difference. She didn't want to run either.

At the time, I thought Rubio was the best pick. I thought the only reason he didn't pick Rubio was because Rubio didn't want to run. I haven't heard anything on that.

Equality, great prognosticator, would Rubio have made a difference?

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He never said it would be worth it; He only said it would be easy.