The last time I wrote in depth about the Presidential race was when we were 150 days away from voting. There is no question who I want to win. There is no question who I think deserves to win. There is no question about who I believe this country needs to lead us over the next four years. However, I bring an analytical mind to every issue. Opinions and feelings are great but I rely on facts.
How do I see the Presidential race right now?
I am of the same mind that I was 140 days ago. Bear in mind that at that time most people thought Obama would be very hard to beat. Many Republicans were pessimistic about Romney's prospects.
However, based on my analysis at that time I saw three potential outcomes.
A squeaker for Obama.
A squeaker for Romney.
A comfortable win for Romney. I do not see see the same possibility for Obama as things now stand.
I stand by that prediction with 10 days to go. It still could go either way based on the polling data but I think Romney has a slightly better chance to prevail right now. Why? Let's look at some data.
Two big factors determine political races. First, getting people from your party to vote. This is generally referred as "turnout". Generally speaking, self-identified Republicans and Democrats vote 90% of the time for the candidate of their party affiliation. If 100,000 Democrats vote but only 90,000 Republicans, it is going to be difficult for the Republican to win unless Independents swing heavily to the Republican. In this example, if 75,000 Independents vote, the Republican has to win the swing voters by greater than 10 points to win the race. This is the math of political races.
In 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain in the popular vote 53%-46%. The other 1% went to minor candidates. He won by getting more Democrats to the polls than John McCain got Republicans (39% of those who voted in 2008 identified themselves as Democrats and only 32% said they were Republicans.) Further, the remaining 29% who called themselves Independents voted for Obama by 8 points (52%-44%).
How do these big factors look like they are playing out in 2012? Dan McLaughlin of Red State has an excellent in-depth analysis of these key factors plus much more. It is well worth the read if you like to get into the numbers . His conclusion is that Barack Obama is toast. Why? He points to the two key factors above-independent votes and turnout.
One, Mitt Romney has a consistent, significant lead among independent voters, which increasingly looks like a double-digit lead. This is especially clear in national polls, but can also be seen in the key swing state polls. It’s been a hard enough number for the past few weeks now, even as the last of the debates gets baked into the polls, that there’s little chance that Obama can turn it around in the 11 days remaining in this race. In fact, Obama has been underwater with independents almost continuously since the middle of 2009.
Recent polling by Rasmussen has Romney up by 11 with Independents nationally. Some polls have him up much more than that. This is a big problem for Obama but it is not necessarily fatal as Independents generally make up less than 30% of voters. Therefore, even if Romney turns the 8% disadvantage that McCain had with Independents to an 8% advantage that only swings the total vote by 4.8% (30% I-votes x 16%). However, Obama won in 2008 by 7%. Therefore, if Democrats outnumber Republicans at the polls similar to 2008, Romney still loses the popular vote.
The issue of Democrat and Republican turnout has been the big question in this campaign. The pollsters have struggled with how to model the turnout. Will 2012 look more like 2008, 2010 or revert to historical averages. This usually has meant a D-advantage of 2 or 3 points at the polls instead of the 7% advantage Obama got in 2008 or the even split in 2010 that led to the Republican landslide.
This is McLaughlin's view on turnout.
Two, to overcome losing independents by more than a few points, Obama needs to have a decisive advantage in Democratic turnout, roughly on the order of – or in some places exceeding – the advantage he enjoyed in 2008, when Democrats nationally had a 7-point advantage (39-32). Yet nearly every indicator we have of turnout suggests that, relative to Republicans, the Democrats are behind where they were in 2008. Surveys by the two largest professional pollsters, Rasmussen and Gallup, actually suggest that Republicans will have a turnout advantage, which has happened only once (in the 2002 midterms) in the history of exit polling and probably hasn’t happened in a presidential election year since the 1920s.
 |
| R-D-I Turnout in National Election Years Source:Dan McLaughlin, Red State |
You can see from the chart above that Republicans historically have represented about 35%-36% of voters at the polls. It has been pretty consistent the last 30 years since Ronald Reagan redrew the political map and the Southern and Rural Democrat conservatives switched to the Republican party . McCain lost in 2008 in large part because too many Republican voters simply stayed home. Only 32% of the voters last time considered themselves Republicans. Democrats have historically represented about 37%-39% of voters. It is interesting that in 2008 Obama did not get a higher percentage of D's to the polls than Clinton in 1996 or Gore in 2000.
Romney needs to have 36% or more of the voters on Election Day be identified as Republicans to feel comfortable with his chances. At the same time, he would like to see the Democrat turnout number to be no more than 38%. If the numbers are close, Romney will win comfortably. Republicans have won easily each time turnout numbers were in the same range (1994, 2002, 2004, 2010). When the turnout gap is 3 or 4 points to the Democrats, the D's usually prevail easily.
The good news for Romney right now is that both Gallup and Rasmussen's latest survey of party identification show about 36% of voters saying they consider themselves Republicans. This is slightly higher than historical averages. On the other hand, only about 34% are currently identifying themselves as Democrats. This is significantly below historical averages and 5% points below where this number stood in 2008. If this holds true in ten days, Obama will be toast.
Turning to the electoral college, I wrote in June that I believed that Romney would likely win all the states that McCain did in 2008. This would give him 179 of the 270 he needed. I thought he also was in a great position to win North Carolina, Indiana and Florida as McCain lost all of these by less than 3% of the vote last time. This gets him to 234. He also looked to be in a good position to win one of the five electoral votes in Nebraska that McCain did not win in 2008. Ohio (4.6% margin last time) and Virginia (6.29%) would be the next best targets. Winning these gets him to 266. Taking Colorado (8.95%, Iowa (9.54%) or New Hampshire (9.65%) puts him over the top.
Recent polls seem to confirm my analysis in June. Romney looks solid in all the McCain states. Indiana and North Carolina look to be in the Romney column. Florida and Virginia are toss ups but Romney seems to have a slight advantage. Iowa, New Hampshire and Colorado could go either way. The same is true for Ohio, my home state, which most observers see as the most critical state for both candidates.
How do I see Ohio?
First, I don't see anywhere near the enthusiasm for Obama that I saw in 2008. You could not avoid seeing scores of Obama yard signs and bumper stickers four years ago in Cincinnati. This time Romney's are the ones you notice. Some people downplay this anecdotal evidence. I don't. People who put a sign in their yard or a sticker on their bumper are going to vote. You can count on that just as you can count on someone who makes a contribution to a candidate is going to vote. They have made a commitment and human beings tend to follow through when they have made a commitment.
Second, if Romney is going to win Ohio he must win Hamilton County which is the county in which Cincinnati sits. It has tended to be Republican over the years but Obama won the county in 2008 by almost 50,000 votes. By contrast, Bush carried it by 23,000 votes in 2004 and 43,000 votes in 2000. Romney has to win Hamilton County. If he can win by 25,000 or more votes I think he will be very happy.
Third, Romney has to keep Obama's margin of victory in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) to no more than 200,000 to 225,000 votes. In 2008, Obama carried Cuyahoga County by 259,000 votes. He won Ohio by 262,000 votes. In effect, his entire margin of victory in the state could be attributed to this one county. All the other votes in the state balanced out. Romney cannot allow himself to be blown out in Cuyahoga if he is going to win Ohio.
Fourth, Romney seems to be winning Independents in Ohio according to most polls. According to Josh Jordan @NumbersMuncher, in the seventeen most recent polls in Ohio, fourteen show Romney winning with an average margin of +11.4%. By comparison, Obama won I's by 8% in 2008. That is a 20% swing. If I's are 25% of the total vote that will increase Romney's total votes by 4% compared to McCain. McCain lost by a margin of 4.6%. If this is accurate, turnout will determine Ohio. However, the variation in the Ohio polls is weird. Rasmussen shows the overall race is even though he has Obama winning I's by 2. Suffolk also shows the overall race as even but Romney is up +20 with I's. That is why Ohio is so hard to call.
Early voting is in process in Ohio. In 2008, Obama had an enormous advantage with those that voted early. Battleground Watch reports what they know about early voting in Ohio.
Obama’s 2008 early voting secret weapon is gone. He won Ohio in 2008 due to an overwhelming early vote advantage. On election day more votes were cast for John McCain than Barack Obama but so many votes banked away for Obama that it wasn’t enough. Today, according to the same Adrian Gray: “220,000 fewer Democrats have voted early in Ohio compared with 2008. And 30,000 more Republicans have cast their ballots compared with four years ago. That is a 250,000-vote net increase for a state Obama won by 260,000 votes in 2008.″
This seems good news for Romney but the increase in early Republican votes may only mean that they are pulling votes forward that would have been there for Romney anyway. For example, Mrs. BeeLine and I have already voted early. We did not vote early in 2008. Same result in the end. The only advantage is that someone tracking potential Romney votes can mark us off their list and spend their time calling someone else.
The Republican National Committee put out a chart on Thursday speaking to this point. The RNC claims that the early voting efforts of the Democrats in key swing states Ohio, Iowa and Nevada are more likely pulling votes forward that they would have on election day anyway. In effect, cannibalizing votes. The real advantage of early voting is getting voters locked in that might not find the time to get to the polls on November 6. The RNC argues that this is their focus.
Here is the chart. Notice that in Ohio 43% of early Democrat voters have voted in at least 3 or the last 4 general elections. By contrast, only 27% of the Republican early voters had been regular voters.
 |
| Source: Republican National Committee 10/25/12 |
Two terms? Toast? This is the best data I have found on the Presidential race. However, the tea leaves are still tough to read. My gut tells me Romney right now. However, my heart is awfully close to my gut. That leads to errors in judgment. There are still ten days to go. Give me another nine days to make my final call. A week and a half is still an eternity in politics.
No comments:
Post a Comment