General Election Thread (no partisan sniping allowed!)

[Reilly]

See scenario #3 ...

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/cry...collegeupdate/

[Highlander]

As of yesterday's gallup poll, Romney has opened up his biggest lead over Obama - 51-45%. However, as the folks at electoral-vote.com show, the poll internals tell a different story:

Region	Obama	Romney	Margin
East	52%	48%	Obama +4%
Midwest	52%	48%	Obama +4%
South	39%	61%	Romney +22%
West	53%	47%	Obama +6%

So Romney is leading big in the South, but the remaining numbers tilt in Obama's favor. If this was a popular vote election, Romney's chances would be decidedly better. Unfortunately for him, his support doesn't appear to be as geographically diverse as Obama's. It will be interesting to see if Romney wins the popular vote, but loses the election.

Another interesting note was that this week, Ohio has upheld the ruling which will allow the polls to be open the weekend before election day to all voters, not just military families. This is seen as a big win for Democrats, as early voting tends to favor blue collar workers who cannot get out of work to vote. It is significant in this election because, without Ohio, Romney's path to 270 becomes almost impossible.

Source: www.electoral-vote.com

[davekay1971]

As of yesterday's gallup poll, Romney has opened up his biggest lead over Obama - 51-45%. However, as the folks at electoral-vote.com show, the poll internals tell a different story:

Region	Obama	Romney	Margin
East	52%	48%	Obama +4%
Midwest	52%	48%	Obama +4%
South	39%	61%	Romney +22%
West	53%	47%	Obama +6%

So Romney is leading big in the South, but the remaining numbers tilt in Obama's favor. If this was a popular vote election, Romney's chances would be decidedly better. Unfortunately for him, his support doesn't appear to be as geographically diverse as Obama's. It will be interesting to see if Romney wins the popular vote, but loses the election.

Another interesting note was that this week, Ohio has upheld the ruling which will allow the polls to be open the weekend before election day to all voters, not just military families. This is seen as a big win for Democrats, as early voting tends to favor blue collar workers who cannot get out of work to vote. It is significant in this election because, without Ohio, Romney's path to 270 becomes almost impossible.

Source: www.electoral-vote.com

Great map. Romney needs to get all the states on his map that lean his way, the exactly tied states, and Ohio away from the slight-lean-Obama to win the electoral college vote. That's a tall order, and requires that (1) he runs a strong campaign from here on out and (2) he gets a little help from Obama (like another subpar debate performance). Thus the fact that Obama's still a favorite.

[OldPhiKap]

Great map. Romney needs to get all the states on his map that lean his way, the exactly tied states, and Ohio away from the slight-lean-Obama to win the electoral college vote. That's a tall order, and requires that (1) he runs a strong campaign from here on out and (2) he gets a little help from Obama (like another subpar debate performance). Thus the fact that Obama's still a favorite.

The counter-argument is that late votes usually break against the incumbent. Also, if you look at how Romney won many of the states in the primaries, he had a big surge at the end based on massive negative ad buys.

Ohio is the key. If Romney loses the presidency, it will be because the "let Detroit go bankrupt" meme lost him the auto industry backbone of the state.

[Tom B.]

The counter-argument is that late votes usually break against the incumbent. Also, if you look at how Romney won many of the states in the primaries, he had a big surge at the end based on massive negative ad buys.

Nate Silver had a post a while back that called into question the conventional wisdom that late-deciding voters break towards the challenger. The bottom line -- there's some anecdotal evidence for it, but it's not very robust, and it's almost as likely that you'll see more late-deciding voters break to the incumbent. One big data point in support of the conventional wisdom was the 1980 election, but I've discussed the unusual dynamic of that election here before (a substantial number of late undecideds, only one debate that occurred very late in the race, etc.). A contrasting example would be 2000, where George Bush opened a lead on Al Gore in October, only to end up losing the popular vote (though he still won the electoral vote).

As for Romney's late surges in close states during the primaries, remember that his negative ad buys were often on the order of 5-to-1 or more against his challengers, which he could do because he had a big financial advantage. The Romney campaign and its allied groups will outspend the Obama campaign and its allied groups the rest of the way, but the advantage won't be nearly that big, so it's not as clear-cut whether ad spending alone will have the same effect that it did in the primaries.

[Mal]

The Romney campaign and its allied groups will outspend the Obama campaign and its allied groups the rest of the way, but the advantage won't be nearly that big, so it's not as clear-cut whether ad spending alone will have the same effect that it did in the primaries.

Another factor would be that I assume we're well into the realm of diminishing marginal returns on ad buys, for both candidates, at this point. The airwaves in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and other places have been saturated for so long I have to think the response from most at this point is groaning and "Please make it stop!" rather than watching and listening. I just don't know who's left at this point to be either swayed toward one candidate or the other, or persuded to vote if they were wishy-washy on it, through television advertising.

Anyhoo, I found this to be hilarious and probably the first humor about the campaign that both sides can laugh at:

Clinton binders.jpg

[gus]

Nate Silver had a post a while back that called into question the conventional wisdom that late-deciding voters break towards the challenger. The bottom line -- there's some anecdotal evidence for it, but it's not very robust, and it's almost as likely that you'll see more late-deciding voters break to the incumbent. One big data point in support of the conventional wisdom was the 1980 election, but I've discussed the unusual dynamic of that election here before (a substantial number of late undecideds, only one debate that occurred very late in the race, etc.). A contrasting example would be 2000, where George Bush opened a lead on Al Gore in October, only to end up losing the popular vote (though he still won the electoral vote).

As for Romney's late surges in close states during the primaries, remember that his negative ad buys were often on the order of 5-to-1 or more against his challengers, which he could do because he had a big financial advantage. The Romney campaign and its allied groups will outspend the Obama campaign and its allied groups the rest of the way, but the advantage won't be nearly that big, so it's not as clear-cut whether ad spending alone will have the same effect that it did in the primaries.

Bush wasn't an incumbent in 2000 - does the CW hold for encumbent parties too? I also think that election, because it was effectively a tie, isn't useful for predictions (except in the post-election behavior of the parties and who they will jockey for advantage in similarly close elections).

Also,

[OldPhiKap]

Nate Silver had a post a while back that called into question the conventional wisdom that late-deciding voters break towards the challenger. The bottom line -- there's some anecdotal evidence for it, but it's not very robust, and it's almost as likely that you'll see more late-deciding voters break to the incumbent. One big data point in support of the conventional wisdom was the 1980 election, but I've discussed the unusual dynamic of that election here before (a substantial number of late undecideds, only one debate that occurred very late in the race, etc.). A contrasting example would be 2000, where George Bush opened a lead on Al Gore in October, only to end up losing the popular vote (though he still won the electoral vote).

As for Romney's late surges in close states during the primaries, remember that his negative ad buys were often on the order of 5-to-1 or more against his challengers, which he could do because he had a big financial advantage. The Romney campaign and its allied groups will outspend the Obama campaign and its allied groups the rest of the way, but the advantage won't be nearly that big, so it's not as clear-cut whether ad spending alone will have the same effect that it did in the primaries.

Interesting link, thanks.

If I am reading it correctly, assuming we use all of October and November's numbers, the challenger gains about 0.7% on the incumbent over the real close of the race from where we are now (roughly -- 4.7% increase versus 5.4%). My guess is that if we just used elections where we were in recessions/slow growth versus good times, the gap would be even larger. Folks broke late against Carter in '80; Bush Sr. lost in '92 after having something like an 80% approval rating eighteen months before. Reagan won in '84 although Mondale was a throw-back to the Carter policies when he had been VP. That may be the closest analogy since Romney (as best I can tell) is using the same economic theory as GWB (lower taxes, less regulation leads to growth that lifts all boats).

You are correct that Obama cannot be money-whipped the same as Newt, Perry, etc. I thought I read somewhere that Mitt did one of these late charges to win the governorship back in the day, against what I would presume to be a well-funded Democrat. I can't find a link to it at present so perhaps I have that wrong.

[gus]

Another factor would be that I assume we're well into the realm of diminishing marginal returns on ad buys, for both candidates, at this point. The airwaves in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and other places have been saturated for so long I have to think the response from most at this point is groaning and "Please make it stop!" rather than watching and listening. I just don't know who's left at this point to be either swayed toward one candidate or the other, or persuded to vote if they were wishy-washy on it, through television advertising.

Anyhoo, I found this to be hilarious and probably the first humor about the campaign that both sides can laugh at:

Clinton binders.jpg

I love that picture. Obama's look of exasperation makes that meme so much funnier.

[hurleyfor3]

This thread has certainly devolved.

The premise it was "evolved" in the first place is questionable.

[Olympic Fan]

Gus, I think that is a GREAT political cartoon -- a cautionary warning for those amateur political pundits among us.

Just wondering, I don't see a by-line ... do you know who composed it?

As for spending down the stretch, I saw a breakdown of September spending that showed the the Obama and Romney campaigns were on an roughly equal footing for the month -- both spending between $18-19 million that month. The difference was the Super-Pacs -- Republican super-Pacs had spent in the neighborhood of $9 million, while Democratic Super-Pacs had spent around $3 million.

The Super-Pac spending is supposed to be independent of the campaigns, but in reality the only way to tell the difference is the disclaimer at the end (Hi, I'm Candidate X and I approved this ad vs. This message brought to you by the Sons of the Desert).

[El_Diablo]

If I am reading it correctly, assuming we use all of October and November's numbers, the challenger gains about 0.7% on the incumbent over the real close of the race from where we are now (roughly -- 4.7% increase versus 5.4%).

The numbers aren't meant to be cumulative going down the vertical axis. The poll averages are shown for each month, followed by the actual election results (and finally the difference between the two numbers). So, looking at October, the incumbent party candidate averaged 45.9% in the polls and the challenging party candidate averaged 42.1%. The difference between those numbers and the final results (48.7% vs. 45.5%) show that the incumbent gained about 2.8% and the challenger gained 3.4% between October and the election (basically from those that were undecided in October, or who switched candidates). So there's historically a very slight advantage to the challenger at this point, but it's not like undecided voters break substantially against the incumbent. Silver points out that it's just as likely a late-stage reversion to the mean, since incumbents have frequently had bigger leads over challengers:

However, it is not clear that this has to do with which candidate is the incumbent and which is the challenger so much as something else. In presidential years, the polls typically break toward the candidate who trails in the polls — that is, there is some regression toward the mean. A candidate who trails by 20 points in July is a favorite to do at least a little bit better than that by Election Day (although, obviously, he is a huge underdog to actually win the election).

[El_Diablo]

Just wondering, I don't see a by-line ... do you know who composed it?

It's from http://xkcd.com

[throatybeard]

As of yesterday's gallup poll, Romney has opened up his biggest lead over Obama - 51-45%. However, as the folks at electoral-vote.com show, the poll internals tell a different story:

Region	Obama	Romney	Margin
East	52%	48%	Obama +4%
Midwest	52%	48%	Obama +4%
South	39%	61%	Romney +22%
West	53%	47%	Obama +6%

So Romney is leading big in the South, but the remaining numbers tilt in Obama's favor. If this was a popular vote election, Romney's chances would be decidedly better. Unfortunately for him, his support doesn't appear to be as geographically diverse as Obama's. It will be interesting to see if Romney wins the popular vote, but loses the election.

Another interesting note was that this week, Ohio has upheld the ruling which will allow the polls to be open the weekend before election day to all voters, not just military families. This is seen as a big win for Democrats, as early voting tends to favor blue collar workers who cannot get out of work to vote. It is significant in this election because, without Ohio, Romney's path to 270 becomes almost impossible.

Source: www.electoral-vote.com

So if this were the Heisman trophy, Obama would be in the clear.

[gus]

Gus, I think that is a GREAT political cartoon -- a cautionary warning for those amateur political pundits among us.

Just wondering, I don't see a by-line ... do you know who composed it?

www.xkcd.com

Not necessarily worksafe, but if you love math, science or technology, Randall Munroe's comic is one you need to read. Make sure you hover over the comic strips for his hidden alt-text jokes.

[OldPhiKap]

So if this were the Heisman trophy, Obama would be in the clear.

I don't care if he is +22 in the South, Alabama and LSU will both win and cover.

[hurleyfor3]

There's a better one for Obama this year: No President has won a second term with fewer electoral votes than in his first victory, without a major third party candidate present in either election. (Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican vote in 1912, and FDR's victories with fewer EVs were for third and fourth terms.)

Also, 1924 isn't quite right, as Coolidge was already in office; he didn't "become President" as a result of the election.

[Tom B.]

Bush wasn't an incumbent in 2000 - does the CW hold for encumbent parties too?

I was treating Gore as the "incumbent" because he was basically running for Clinton's third term, much like GHWB ran for (and won) Reagan's third term in 1988. But your point is well-taken -- he wasn't a true incumbent, so it may not be a perfect comparison.

[gus]

I was treating Gore as the "incumbent" because he was basically running for Clinton's third term, much like GHWB ran for (and won) Reagan's third term in 1988. But your point is well-taken -- he wasn't a true incumbent, so it may not be a perfect comparison.

Bush?? Obviously I meant Gore.

[OldPhiKap]

John Oliver gets it right:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/we...dential-debate