This
is a rewrite of our original article that appeared on February 11th now
that we know that the candidates will be Obama and Romney. The obvious
answer to the question of who will win is that it depends upon what
happens between now and then. As the 2000 presidential election reminded
us, it is all about electoral votes. The electoral votes have changed
since 2000 thanks to the 2010 census which transferred electoral votes
from blue states to red states on the whole making it easier for a
Republican to win.
First
you need to forget just about everything you think you know about
winning a presidential election because it is a whole new ballgame as a
result of the change in electoral votes and therefore which states are
battleground states. The answer to which party will control the White
House comes down to a mere handful of states. You can forget about
polling nationwide for which party will win the Presidency in 2012
because you only need to poll the new battleground states to know the
answer.
Let's
begin by looking at the revised electoral vote picture for the 2012
election. In the original article, this table was ordered using the
2000 to 2008 average but now it is a matter of how many states Obama
will lose in 2012 compared to 2008, if any. Thus this table is now
ordered by the 2008 results:
The first thing to notice is that even if Romney manages to take back North Carolina and Indiana which seems quite likely at this point, he only has 206 votes and he needs a minimum of 270. That means he MUST also carry the next three states that McCain lost, namely Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Even if does manage that feat, he still only has 266 votes as the right hand column shows. As a general rule, a party is highly unlikely to carry a state that they previously lost to the same opponent by more than a 10 point margin. While some optimistic Republicans still think that Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin and even New Mexico is in play, that is not what history tells us from previous election results. Perhaps the Scott Walker recall election will show that Wisconsin is in play but the odds still are not good.
The
next consideration is that President Obama made deep inroads into the
Republican states so we must ask if he can repeat this feat. Therefore
we need to look at the states he won that he might not be able to carry
in 2012. If he won by better than a 5% margin then those states are a
real problem for the Republicans. Virginia and Colorado were lost by
more than that. As you look at what states might make up for Virginia,
you will see that all of the states that are blue in the last column
were lost by a greater margin than Virginia so if Obama carries Virginia
in 2012, he wins re-election. If he carries Colorado which he won by
8.95%, he must lose New Hampshire which he carried by 9.61% or Iowa
which he carried by 9.54%. Virginia, Colorado, Iowa and New Hampshire
will decide the election because the Republicans must carry either
Colorado or either Iowa or New Hampshire in addition to Virginia.
It
goes without saying that Romney must also carry the other four states
the Republicans lost by less than 5%. Thus polling those eight states
will tell you who will win in 2012. Romney must be ahead in five of them
and ahead in either Colorado, Iowa or New Hampshire. So what do we know
about Romney's chances in those eight states? Here is what the 2010
House races told us in those eight states plus the next four just to
make sure we are not missing any bets:
If
the voters repeat what they did in the 2010 House races, Obama is
toast. Even if they wind up half way between what they did in 2008 and
2010, the Republicans win because they carry Iowa, New Hampshire and
Wisconsin which more than makes up for losing Colorado. If you want to
know which party will control the White House in 2013, poll Colorado. If
Romney is ahead of Obama, the Republicans will win 2012. If Obama is
ahead in Colorado, poll Iowa and New Hampshire. If Romney is ahead in
either state, the Republicans will win but if Romney is behind in both
states, Obama will win. For an even cheaper answer, just poll Wisconsin.
If Romney is ahead, Obama is all through. Yes, it really is that
simple.
That being the case let's see what Real Clear Pollitics average of likely voter polls
tell us about the current situation in these swing states. I am only
keeping the polls of likely voters in the RCP averages unless there are
not any because turnout means everything in this election. Even polls of
registered voters are not good enough because not all registered voters
turn out and Republicans always turn out better than Democrats so
registered voter polls invariably are biased towards Democrats. Needless
to say, polls of all adults are worthless for political purposes. As
you can see, Obama wins if the election were held today because he holds
Ohio and Virgina even though he loses Iowa and Colorado is a total
toss-up. Right now Romney needs to practically live in Ohio because
without improving the situation there he is toast.
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Who Will Be President in 2013?
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