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Kasz216 on 21 August 2012
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makingmusic476 said:
Allfreedom99 said:
Kasz216 said

.

Kasz, I have some thoughts about this, but I was just curious as to your reasoning of this conclusion?

Have you been keeping track of polls in swing states and the electoral map?

The current situation would require Mitt Romney to win almost every swing state to get 270 EVs, but Obama's up in most.  Prior to Wisconsin becoming a proper swing state with the Ryan pick (before it was consistently up 6+ points for Obama), Obama had to only win a single swing state to take the election.

Based on current poll aggregates, I'd say this is the most likely electoral map, leaving Wisconsin and Florida as toss-ups until further data comes in:

http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=sAc

Prior to the Ryan pick, I would've put Wisconsin for Obama and still left Florida up for grabs.

But the point is, even if Romney takes both Wisconsin and Florida, he still only has 244 votes.  

So let's say these are the total states (real swing states, not "swing" states like Pennsylvania):

Ohio
Iowa
Virginia
North Carolina
Colorado
Wisconsin 
Florida

If Romney takes them all but Florida, he still loses.  If he takes them all but Ohio, he barely wins.  Obama just has to take any two of those (three if one of those is Iowa) to win.  And Ohio has been leaning pretty heavily for Obama, with Iowa, Virginia, and Colorado all also favoring Obama:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/

Demographics are really fucking up the Republican path to 270.  Ten years ago Pennsylvania was an actual swing state, and states like Virginia and North Carolina were solid red.   Because of increasing urbanization both Virginia and North Carolina are now winnable by Democrats, and former swing states like Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico are becoming more and more blue due to the increase in Latino voters.  New Mexico is no longer a swing state, and it's arguable the same has happened to Nevada (they don't get polled all that often).  It won't be long before Colorado isn't a swing state and Arizona goes from red to purple.

I'd imagine Texas will be pretty purple in the next 10-15 years as well, barring a major (and seemingly necessary) shift in Republican politics.


Kept meaning to reply to this and forgot, but yeah that sums it up pretty well.  That and I think Romney just doesn't have a few critical things he needs to beat Obama... like a personality.

Well group personality anyway.  Apparently he's really personable in 1 on 1 situations... but his group and speech talking leaves a lot to be desired.