NORTON META TAG

05 November 2012

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORAL VOTE PREDICTIONS 5NOV12

THE last predictions on this blog for this election, from Five Thirty Eight, ElectoralVote.com, HuffPost and Intrade, and all are showing an Obama victory....God help us if they are wrong!!!!
Updated 10:05 PM ET on Nov. 5

President
Nov. 6 Forecast
Mitt Romney
222.7
-16.3 since Oct. 30 
Barack Obama
315.3
+16.3 since Oct. 30
270 to win

We conclude our Presidential Geography series, a one-by-one examination of each state’s political landscape and how it is changing, with Ohio, the Buckeye State. FiveThirtyEight spoke with Herb Asher and Paul A. Beck, both professors emeritus in Ohio State University’s department of political science.
If the polls are correct, and President Obama wins a narrow Electoral College victory on Tuesday, the pivotal moment of the 2012 presidential race may have actually occurred in 2009. About two months after taking office, Mr. Obama set the terms of the government’s rescue of General Motors and Chrysler, a move that eventually helped to resurrect the American automobile industry, and, in turn, bolster the economy of the king of swing states: Ohio.
Historically, Ohio has been slightly Republican-leaning relative to the nation. But this year polls suggest that Ohio is slightly Democratic-leaning. That divergence — driven by the auto rescue and the state’s improved economy, local analysts said — may prove determinative. Ohio ranks first on FiveThirtyEight’s tipping point index. The model estimates there is roughly a 50 percent chance that the Buckeye State’s 18 electoral votes will carry the winning candidate past the 270 mark.
Ohio’s historic rightward lean has been slight — about two percentage points, on average, since 1948 — but consistent. In the 16 presidential elections from 1948 through 2008, Ohio was redder than the nation in 13. It was Democratic-leaning relative to the nation only in 1964, 1972 and 2004 (and in 2004, it leaned Democratic by less than half a percentage point).
But polls show Mr. Obama leading Mitt Romney in Ohio by about three percentage points, one point better than Mr. Obama’s projected national margin, according to the current FiveThirtyEight forecast. The auto rescue’s impact on Ohio’s political preferences, though modest, has been decisive.
“The auto rescue is popular in Ohio,” Mr. Beck said, and because the Buckeye State was only slightly Republican-leaning, a small shift appears to have tipped the state’s partisan balance.
Moreover, the auto rescue and Ohio’s steadily falling unemployment rate appear to have improved Mr. Obama’s standing with the very demographic group that Mr. Romney might have made inroads with: white working-class voters.
“White working-class voters in Ohio have been more supportive of Obama than white working-class voters nationwide,” Mr. Beck said.
Ohio’s economy has traditionally been driven by manufacturing. “Ohio led the industrial revolution 100 years ago,” Mr. Asher said, but in the latter half of the 20th century, globalization and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs hurt the state’s economy.
Early in the 2012 presidential campaign, during the summer, the Obama campaign saturated Ohio television with advertisements highlighting Mr. Romney’s “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” op-ed article in The Times as well as linking Mr. Romney to Bain Capital and linking Bain Capital to outsourcing, Mr. Asher said. For many Ohio voters, that effort helped undermine Mr. Romney’s contention that his business experience would benefit them if he reached the White House.
As a result, Mr. Beck said, many of the white working-class voters whom Mr. Romney might have appealed to now see him “as the kind of businessman who for many of them was the problem.”
Mr. Asher added, “The Obama campaign defined Mr. Romney, and that appeal gets reinforcement by the auto bailout.”
The Democratic Party’s base of support in Ohio is in the northeast part of the state, a mix of African-American and blue-collar union voters in Cleveland, Canton, Akron and Youngstown. In 2008, Mr. Obama carried Ohio by just over 200,000 votes; he carried Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County by almost 250,000 votes. Northeastern Ohio is also the center of the state’s auto industry, in Cuyahoga and Lake Counties.
From Cleveland, Democratic support fades as you travel west along Lake Erie (though Toledo is reliably left-leaning) and southeast along Ohio’s border with Pennsylvania. Democrats have also made some gains in Ohio’s other major cities. Franklin County, which includes the state capital, Columbus, has trended Democratic, and Mr. Obama made gains in Dayton in 2008, as well.
In 2008, Mr. Obama also managed to flip Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, which had long been one of the more Republican-leaning cities in the state.
Conversely, Democratic support has eroded in southeastern Ohio, which is part of Appalachia. The southeast is culturally conservative and economically depressed. Bill Clinton carried many of the counties there, but they have moved sharply toward the G.O.P. since then. Coal is a major economic driver in southeastern Ohio, and Mr. Romney has targeted voters in the area by attacking Mr. Obama’s energy policies. But the southeast is also lightly populated, contributing only about 10 percent of the statewide vote, Mr. Asher said.
Outside of the northeast and Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio is mostly Republican-leaning. Western Ohio, in particular, is ruby red and socially conservative. To carry the state, Mr. Romney will need to run up his margins in the suburban and exurban counties in southwestern Ohio around Cincinnati as well as the small towns along the state’s western border. In 2008, Senator John McCain carried those counties, but he did not get the turnout and margins that George W. Bush did in 2004.
The Bellwether: Stark County
Stark County, anchored by Canton, has been an almost perfect bellwether for the statewide vote in Ohio in the past three presidential elections. Canton tends to vote Democratic, but Stark County also has more rural areas that lean Republican. Stark County was one percentage point more Republican-leaning that Ohio over all in 2008 and 2000 and two points more Republican-leaning in 2004.
The Bottom Line
Mr. Obama is an 85 percent favorite to carry Ohio, according to the current FiveThirtyEight forecast. Not coincidentally, that almost exactly matches his odds of winning re-election, according to the model.
If not for the auto rescue, Ohio’s slight Republican lean would most likely have remained in effect. Unlike in other states, there are no major demographic trends affecting the state’s partisan balance.
“Ohio in terms of demographics is a fairly static state,” Mr. Beck said. “Our Hispanic population is too small to matter except at the margins.”
If Ohio were, relative to the national popular vote, two percentage points Republican-leaning this election — its average over the last 60 years — the state would be a tossup. And if Mr. Romney were able to carry Ohio, he would have many more paths to the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the White House.
But if the polls are right, and the auto rescue and Ohio’s relatively healthy economy help Mr. Obama prevail in the Buckeye State, then it becomes difficult — though not impossible — for Mr. Romney to piece together a winning electoral map.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/in-ohio-polls-show-benefit-of-auto-rescue-to-obama/#more-37207
ELECTORALVOTE.COM

votefromabroad.org
Obama 294
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Ties 24
Romney 220
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Senate
Dem 51
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Ties 4
GOP 45
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Senate Downloadable
polling data

  • Strongly Dem (179)
  • Likely Dem (38)
  • Barely Dem (77)
  • Exactly tied (24)
  • Barely GOP (29)
  • Likely GOP (52)
  • Strongly GOP (139)
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News from the Votemaster



Obama Continues to Surge in the National Polls

Eight national polls were published yesterday. In five of them, Obama is leading. In the other three he is tied. However, he was trailing in two of the tied polls from the same pollsters earlier, so he is gaining. In politics, a week is a long time, but a day isn't so long and Romney has only a day to stop Obama's momentum. Here are the data.
Pollster Obama Romney Leading
Pew 50% 47% Obama +3%
YouGov 49% 47% Obama +2%
Marist 48% 47% Obama +1%
Ipsos 48% 47% Obama +1%
WaPo/ABC 49% 48% Obama +1%
Tarrance+Lake 48% 48% Tie
Opinion Research 49% 49% Tie
Rasmussen 49% 49% Tie



Dutch Newspaper Reports Romney Avoided $100 Million in Taxes

This morning, investigative reporters at a quality Dutch newspaper, De Volkskrant, published a story that Mitt Romney avoided $100 million in dividend taxes using a complex route that ran through The Netherlands. The mechanism used an arcane clause in the tax treaties that determine which country can tax which type of income when a construction, in this case a private equity fund, runs through multiple countries. Some of the data came from legal documents filed with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. The reporters repeatedly asked Romney to comment on the story but he refused. Here is a translation of the article.

Analysis of Key Races in All 50 States

The Washington Post has a great analysis of the top races in all states. The state of the presidential race is well known at this point. Obama is slightly ahead in New Hampshire, Iowa, and Nevada. Romney leads in North Carolina. The only states where nobody is really ahead are Florida, Virginia, and Colorado. The top Senate races are also well known, as shown here. What the WaPo analysis gives is a look at close House races. Embattled incumbents include Rep. Allen West (R-FL), Rep. John Barrow (D-GA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH), Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH), and quite a few others.

Florida Election in the Courts Already

Florida elections and lawsuits seem to be an enduring couple. Vast numbers of early voters in Florida yesterday overwhelmed the polling stations. Some voters waited in line for 7 hours. Others couldn't vote at all. Some voters in Miami-Dade County were told to cast absentee ballots but when they tried to get them, the office issuing them closed down. In short, it was chaos in South Florida yesterday.
The Democratic Party sued the state in an effort to make adequate voting facilities available. Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) just brushed off the problems and said everything was running smoothly. Last year the Republican-controlled legislature reduced early voting days from 14 to 8 in a more-or-less naked attempt to discourage voting in South Florida, which is strongly Democratic. Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties are where 32% of Florida's Democrats live. The judge doesn't have a lot of time to study the case and render a decision since tomorrow is election day.

Voting Equipment Still Not Verifiable

Another election problem is that some electronic voting machines do not have a paper trail. They are still in use and could be pre-programmed to silently flip some votes or report an incorrect total and no one would have any way of auditing them. The Verified Voting Foundation has been fighting for voting systems with an audit trail for years, with mixed success. For the most part, each of the over 3,000 counties in the U.S. can buy whatever voting equipment it wants to. Few of the counties have any expertise in voting system security and just believe whatever their supplier tells them. The Verified Voting Foundation Website has a great deal of information about voting equipment and procedures, including a map showing the dominant equipment in each state. Florida and Virginia, for example, have a mixture of paper ballots and unverifiable electronic voting machines. Colorado has a mix of paper ballots and electronic voting machines, some with a paper trail and some without. Nevada and Utah are the only states with electronic voting machines all of which have paper trails. The paper trails are essential for an honest election since in the event of a close election, the paper ballots can be manually counted.

Could Unreadable Signatures Be the Hanging Chads of 2012?

Voting machines aren't the only potential source of controversy in this election. Absentee ballots that are mailed in could lead to battles this time. Over 20% of the voters in Ohio and Florida mailed in absentee ballots in 2010 and this year the number is expected to be greater. The ballots are sent back in official envelopes that the voter must sign. If the signature does not match the one on file--in the opinion of whoever is doing the checking--the ballot will be rejected. Nationwide, over 2 million absentee ballots were rejected for bad signatures in 2008. In a close election, fights over signatures could erupt, with handwriting experts replacing lawyers as the key professionals in the fights.

Positive Campaign Ads Have Essentially Vanished

In earlier elections, candidates spent a lot of money explaining to the voters why they were qualified to be President and what they would do if elected. For example, 56% of John Kerry's Ads in 2004 were positive and 42% contrasted him with Bush. This year, 59% of Obama's ads were negative and 27% contrasted him with Romney. Only 14% were positive ads, talking about why he should be reelected. Romney's ads were a tad less negative, but not much. Few people expect the situation to improve in future elections.

Russia Lambasts the U.S. for Undemocratic Elections

With individual donors giving millions of dollars to campaigns, state legislatures doing their best to minimize the number of people who vote, voters being made to wait 7 hours to vote, international observers being sent packing in Texas and Iowa, and voting machines that can't be checked, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said the U.S. election system is the worst in the world. That is certainly not true, but a case could be made that it is the worst among mature democracies, none of which experience the kinds of problems the U.S. has, from outsized influence of a few wealthy individuals to governmental attempts to suppress the vote to chaos at the polling stations. While the U.S. system is far better than the Russian one, that is setting the bar pretty low.

Neither Presidential Candidate Seems to Have Senatorial Coattails

There are hard fought Senate races in many states, including Massachusetts, Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona, but the presidential race doesn't seem to be having much impact on them. The Senate races have gotten so much publicity on their own and the candidates are so much larger than life that most voters are going to be making conscious choices in the Senate races, and not just voting a straight party line. In Massachusetts, Obama will win in a landslide, but the Senate race between Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and Elizabeth Warren is close. Romney will sweep Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Montana, and Arizona, but that is cold comfort to the Republican Senate candidates in those states who are in very competitive races. So the bottom line is that we are likely to see quite a few split tickets this year.

New Jersey to Allow Ballots to be Sent in By Email

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R-NJ), who is the state's top elections official, has decreed that voters who can't vote due to Hurricane Sandy's aftermath may send absentee ballots in by email. Even under the best of circumstances, with careful planning, the possibility of fraud with email ballots is gigantic and in an emergency situation with no security controls in place, it is even worse. Fortunately, there are no competitive races in the state for any federal office, but there could be for state offices.

Today's Presidential Polls

State Obama Romney   Start End Pollster
Arizona 46% 53%   Nov 02 Nov 03 PPP
Colorado 48% 48%   Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Florida 46% 46%   Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Florida 47% 49%   Nov 01 Nov 03 Zogby
Florida 48% 50%   Oct 29 Oct 29 Pulse Opinion Research
Iowa 50% 48%   Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
Massachusetts 57% 37%   Oct 31 Nov 03 U. of Mass.
Massachusetts 58% 40%   Oct 26 Nov 01 Western New England U.
Minnesota 52% 41%   Nov 01 Nov 03 SurveyUSA
Missouri 45% 53%   Nov 02 Nov 03 PPP
Montana 43% 53%   Oct 29 Oct 29 Rasmussen
Montana 43% 53%   Oct 29 Oct 31 Mason Dixon
Montana 45% 52%   Nov 02 Nov 03 PPP
North Carolina 49% 49%   Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
New Hampshire 50% 48%   Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
Ohio 48% 44%   Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Ohio 48% 46%   Oct 29 Oct 29 Pulse Opinion Research
Ohio 50% 42%   Nov 01 Nov 03 Zogby
Ohio 52% 47%   Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
Pennsylvania 49% 46%   Nov 01 Nov 03 Muhlenberg Coll.
Pennsylvania 49% 46%   Oct 30 Oct 30 Pulse Opinion Research
Virginia 47% 46%   Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Virginia 49% 48%   Oct 30 Oct 30 Pulse Opinion Research
Virginia 50% 44%   Nov 01 Nov 03 Zogby
Virginia 51% 47%   Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
Wisconsin 49% 48%   Oct 30 Oct 30 Pulse Opinion Research


Today's Senate Polls

State Democrat D % Republican R % I I % Start End Pollster
Arizona Richard Carmona 46% Jeff Flake 51%     Nov 02 Nov 03 PPP
Florida Bill Nelson* 50% Connie McGillicuddy 46%     Oct 29 Oct 29 Pulse Opinion Research
Florida Bill Nelson* 52% Connie McGillicuddy 38%     Nov 01 Nov 03 Zogby
Florida Bill Nelson* 54% Connie McGillicuddy 39%     Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren 48% Scott Brown* 49%     Oct 31 Nov 03 U. of Mass.
Minnesota Amy Klobuchar* 60% Kurt Bills 30%     Nov 01 Nov 03 SurveyUSA
Missouri Claire McCaskill* 48% Todd Akin 44%     Nov 02 Nov 03 PPP
Montana Jon Tester* 45% Denny Rehberg 49%     Oct 29 Oct 31 Mason Dixon
Montana Jon Tester* 48% Denny Rehberg 46%     Nov 02 Nov 03 PPP
Ohio Sherrod Brown* 43% Josh Mandel 36%     Nov 01 Nov 03 Zogby
Ohio Sherrod Brown* 50% Josh Mandel 42%     Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Ohio Sherrod Brown* 50% Josh Mandel 43%     Oct 29 Oct 29 Pulse Opinion Research
Ohio Sherrod Brown* 54% Josh Mandel 44%     Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
Pennsylvania Bob Casey* 46% Tom Smith 45%     Oct 30 Oct 30 Pulse Opinion Research
Pennsylvania Bob Casey* 48% Tom Smith 42%     Nov 01 Nov 03 Muhlenberg Coll.
Virginia Tim Kaine 48% George Allen 46%     Nov 02 Nov 04 IPSOS
Virginia Tim Kaine 48% George Allen 48%     Oct 30 Oct 30 Pulse Opinion Research
Virginia Tim Kaine 49% George Allen 41%     Nov 01 Nov 03 Zogby
Virginia Tim Kaine 52% George Allen 46%     Nov 03 Nov 04 PPP
Wisconsin Tammy Baldwin 47% Tommy Thompson 48%     Oct 30 Oct 30 Pulse Opinion Research

* Denotes incumbent

---The Votemaster
HUFFPOST
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The current view of the 2012 presidential election.

Updated Monday, Nov. 5 6:30 pm ET
Barack Obama

Barack Obama

271
Electoral Votes
270 to win
Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney

191
Electoral Votes
237 Strong Obama
34 Leans Obama
76 Tossup
0 Leans Romney
191 Strong Romney
HawaiiAlaskaFla.N.H.Mich.Vt.MaineR.I.N.Y.Pa.N.J.Del.Md.Va.W.Va.OhioInd.Ill.Conn.Wis.N.C.D.C.Mass.Tenn.Ark.Mo.Ga.S.C.Ky.Ala.La.Miss.IowaMinn.Okla.TexasN.M.Kan.Neb.S.D.N.D.Wyo.Mont.Colo.IdahoUtahAriz.Nev.Ore.Wash.Calif.
Recent changes RSS
11/5 L L Iowa
11/5 k k Ore.
11/5 a a N.C.
11/4 l l Pa.
11/3 d d N.H.
11/2 i i Ohio
Our snapshot of where the presidential race stands is based on hundreds of state-wide and national opinion polls — filtered through a poll-tracking model — and updated throughout the day.
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State by State

Democrat
Republican

Pollster Outlook Past results
State Electoral votes Obama Romney Margin '08 '04 '00
B Alabama 9 37% 58% Romney +21 R R R
A Alaska 3


R R R
C Arkansas 6 35% 60% Romney +25 R R R
H Delaware 3


D D D
y District of Columbia 3 87% 8% Obama +79 D D D
K Hawaii 4 62% 33% Obama +29 D D D
M Idaho 4 30% 65% Romney +35 R R R
P Kansas 6


R R R
Q Kentucky 8 39% 56% Romney +17 R R R
R Louisiana 8 37% 58% Romney +21 R R R
Y Mississippi 6


R R R
j Oklahoma 7 32% 63% Romney +31 R R R
m Rhode Island 4 59% 36% Obama +23 D D D
n South Carolina 9 43% 52% Romney +9 R R R
t Vermont 3 65% 31% Obama +34 D D D
x Wyoming 3


R R R
*In 2008, Nebraska's electoral votes were split. McCain took four of the state's five electoral votes and Obama took one.
By Jay Boice, Aaron Bycoffe and Andrei Scheinkman. Statistical model created by Simon Jackman.
INTRADE

Electoral Map
Updated at: 10:56 PM, next update in: 00:33 Refresh



Electoral votes
303
Solid: 253
Leaning: 50
Solid: 206
Leaning: 29
235


Electoral votes
Needs to win
0
35
Tossup (0)
ALAKAZARCACOCTDEDCFLGAHIIDINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNUTVTVAWAWVWYTXMOILWI
The probabilities shown on this map are the last trade prices for each market.

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