First shot at the 2012 Presidential Election

42 thoughts on “First shot at the 2012 Presidential Election”

1. What’s the EV count for this map?

2. You forgot to include Vermont in your write-up; minor mistake, since you marked it on the map as being Safe Obama.

   Also, I’m not sure I’d put Michigan as a toss-up (if it was a true Midwestern “swing state” like Wisconsin or Ohio it would’ve shown in 2000/2004), but since you’re doing “states that could be hypothetically competitive, not what is the magic state that gets Obama/Some Dude R over the 270 mark,” putting it as a toss-up seems to be a reasonable move.

   I’m not sure you could call Colorado a “Lean Obama,” but Nevada a toss-up. And considering that not a single incumbent Democratic congressperson in Washington lost reelection and Patty Murray won reelection to the Senate by a comfortable if not overwhelming margin in the Democrats’ worst year since 1946, Washington state seems to be lost cause for Republicans at the federal level for now.

3. That’s a rather broad definition of toss-up.

   While Obama won North Carolina in 2008, I can’t think of a potential scenario where Obama would need North Carolina to win the Presidency. In other words, it’s icing on the cake.

   Ditto the Republicans and Michigan.

4. I employed your model on the Electoral-Vote calculator at http://www.grayraven.com/ec/ to tally (according to the first decade’s apportionment) Obama 235, GOP 185, and tossup 128. This model is not as optimistic as the last one that I read, for although it holds out more hope for NC (convention perhaps?) and CO, it calls MI, NV, and WI into serious question. I think that the backlash against Scott Walker in WI will keep that state usually out of GOP reach next year. As I did with the my last analysis of such a post, I used http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U… This tally needs to be adjusted according to the changes. On the GOP side, Texas gains four seats, AZ, GA, SC, and Utah each gain one, and LA and MO each lose one, for a net gain of six EV’s. On Obama’s side, WA gains a seat while IL, MA, NJ, and PA each lose a seat and NY loses two for a net loss of five. The adjusted tally is Obama 230, GOP 191, and tossup 127.

5. However, I’d move Iowa to lean Obama and Minnesota to likely Obama.  

6. It shows that assuming all states which lean towards one party vote for that party, the GOP has 21 possible winning combinations whereas Obama has 29.

   Of the states that you ranked here, I would change Colorado to tossup and Nevada to lean Dem, as other people have suggested. I would make ME-02 likely Obama, as that seems like the kind of place (very old and very white) where Obama’s approval ratings have fallen off most. And Arkansas and Louisiana I would put as safe GOP.

7. I have no doubt that if Romney’s the nominee, the campaign will hit him for that op-ed he wrote entited “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”  That was a very poor choice of words.

8. I would say NV and VA are both lean Dem as well.

9. Not sure why Michigan would be a tossup.  Obama won MI by more than he won any of the states (other than WA) you have listed as lean or likely Democratic  

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