If the election happened today.Follow

Yep, if Obama wins Ohio or Florida, he's got it. Romney needs both.

See also:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
http://www.electionprojection.com/index.php
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

If Romney lost Ohio, he would have to win every red state on this map plus Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Iowa and then Nevada or Colorado. The realistic chance of Romney losing Ohio and yet winning all those states is about nil.

Obama could lose Florida, Ohio and Virginia off that map and win the election but it seems unlikely that he'd do so and still hold WI, IA, CO & NV.

Obviously any number of things could change. Right now, any sane person would rather have Obama's numbers than Romney's.

Edited, Sep 15th 2012 11:29am by Jophiel

With some chagrin, I like the Relative voter worth algorithm, which puts a Ohio voter worth 9.3 votes per person, and a new yorker valued at <0.1 votes per person.

As noted, Obama could lose the there largest states on that map and still win the election.

But, no, you're right. A projected Obama outcome of 337-202 is right where Romney wants him.

If by "5" you meant "2".


RCP has the average as Obama +3. More troubling is that it's 48.5 to 45.5. Undecided could break 2:1 for Romney and Obama would win. It would take a 3:1 split to theoretically tie it (realistically, some would go for 3rd party candidates, not vote for president, etc). Obama is running some of his best percentage numbers since April.

Things can obviously change (major gaffe, disastrous debate, China declares war on us) but the race has been quite stable for the last few months. Anyone who wants to say it's a positive sign that their candidate has been behind since last October (exempting two day tie Romney got from his convention bump) is deluding themselves.

While I'm never fond of the idea of my vote not counting for much, I have to say, it feels good not to live in any of those places. I'm not sure enduring the onslaught on advertisements would be worth it.

My sympathies to the undecided voters in those states.

Wouldn't individual state polling be more important, considering your president is not decided by popular vote? I mean a national poll is more or less useless as a decisive indicator as to who will win the election or not. Regardless who is leading and who isn't.

From the looks of state polls Obama is very far out front, considering he only needs a handful more electoral votes to tie up the election. Based on state poling the map is looking pretty blue, and I think that is a much stronger indicator of who will win.

http://electoral-vote.com/

According to that site Obama is polling higher in all but 2 swing states. A pretty healthy position to be in going into the debates, events which are arguably Obama's strong suit, at least much more than Romney.

(granted some of the states have not been updated since late August.)

Also of those states you listed only 1 looks like Romney will win it today, NC. The rest are leaning Obama at the moment so I don't see how it looks like Romney will win any of them.


Edited, Sep 17th 2012 11:33am by rdmcandie

Whelp, that's what happens when there is a valuation mismatch. IIRC Ohio votes are worth ~$40 to organizations, but closer to $0 by undecideds.

Correct.



But you have to look at the historical trend. Obama's lead has steadily shrunk over the last 6 months. States he had a firm lead in are now "barely dem" on that map. Another thing to look at is that there's only 2 states in the "barely gop" group (one of which was leaning obama 6 months ago btw). There are a whole mess that are "barely dem". Which means that Obama is losing ground in those states and will have to defend them, while Romney has firm hold of his states and can go on the offense (frankly, has been really).




Key phrase being "at the moment". Again, you have to look at the direction things are trending. This election will be about Romney eating away at Obama's hold on those states, and Obama having to try to play defense to keep them. It will likely be very tight. Much more tight than is suggested by the polling right now.

You also have to make a distinction between polling of registered voters and "likely voters". Romney tends to do better with the latter (which does not bode well for Obama). Also, there's a significant possibility that even that is skewed. One of the problems Obama has is that the excitement for his campaign this time around isn't nearly as great as it was last time. But the polling assumes he'll get a similar turnout among voters. His lead in many states (especially the battleground states) is likely not anywhere close to as much as polling indicates.


By all means though, assume he's a guaranteed win. Hell. You guys don't even need to vote! ;)

Obama was telling people to vote early in 2008 as well. Basically, you just want people to lock their votes in ASAP rather than trust in everyone turning out come election day.

Anyway, here's the aggregate over time for Ohio.

Ohio only matters for few months every four years. Let them enjoy it.

Sure, most are. Definitely not all though.