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dsgrue3 on 25 October 2012
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GameOver22 said:
dsgrue3 said:
GameOver22 said:
dsgrue3 said:
chocoloco said:

 

By the way, the popular vote still shows a lead for Romney. That does not matter as swing state polls are continually favoring Obama.


History proves otherwise. Only one time in our history as a country has a President received +3% of the popular vote and lost the election. Samuel J. Tilden - 1876.

Why +3 percent? That seems like an arbitrary and cherry-picked number.


That's what occurred in 1876. If you disclude that election, no President has received +1% nationally and lost the electoral vote.

RCP Average 10/15 - 10/24 -- -- 47.9 47.0 Romney +0.9
Rasmussen Reports 10/22 - 10/24 1500 LV 3.0 50 47 Romney +3
ABC News/Wash Post 10/21 - 10/24 1386 LV 3.0 50 47 Romney +3
IBD/TIPP 10/19 - 10/24 948 LV 3.5 45 47 Obama +2
Gallup 10/18 - 10/24 2700 LV 2.0 50 47 Romney +3
Associated Press/GfK 10/19 - 10/23 839 LV 4.2 47 45 Romney +2
Monmouth/SurveyUSA/Braun 10/18 - 10/21 1402 LV 2.6 48 45 Romney +3
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 10/17 - 10/20 816 LV 3.4 47 47 Tie

Yeah, I know that, but a candidate only needs to win +.00001 percent of the vote to win the popular vote. Using +1 is just as arbitrary as using +3. The point is that its perfectly feasible to lose the popular vote and win the election (there's a reason why candidates focus on swing states while ignoring  the non-competitive states).

To put bluntly, candidates aren't stupid. They don't try to win the popular vote. They try to win the Electoral College.

No...that's what we just discussed. If you win the popular vote, you win the elction. The only times a candidate has won the popular vote and lost is Gore 2000, Grover Cleveland 1888, and Samuel J Tilden 1876. 

Besides Gore, which was a +0.5% advantage nationally, you have to go back over 124 years for another time when a candidate lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote. Otherwise they coincide.